THE UNITY OF RELIGIONS 



A THE 

UNITY OF RELIGIONS 



A Popular Discussion of 
Ancient and Modern Beliefs 



EDITED BY 

J. HERMAN RANDALL, D.D. 

AND 

J. GARDNER SMITH, M.D. 



Religions are many, — Religion is one. 



NEW YORK 
THOMAS Y. CROWBLL & CO. 

PUBLISHERS 



-$p 



Copyright, 1910, 
By THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO. 



Published September, igio. 



©CI.A271966 



TO 

The Bible School of the 

Mount Morris Baptist Church 

which stands for breadth of thought, 
freedom of conscience, and strength of 
character, this volume is dedicated, in the 
hope that it may help men and women to 
be more tolerant, more generous, and 
more kind, and that love to god and love 
to man may be the basis of every true faith 



PREFACE 

The lectures contained in this volume were delivered 
on successive Sunday mornings, during the winter of 
1909-10, before an adult class in Applied Christianity- 
held in connection with the Bible School of the Mount 
Morris Baptist Church, New York City. They were 
arranged by Dr. J. Gardner Smith, Superintendent of 
the School, and though the hour, 10 o'clock, seemed 
rather early for Sunday morning, the attendance reached 
as high as 430, and never fell below 200. That the 
success of the course was due to the personnel of the 
lecturers, as well as to the subject treated, is unquestion- 
ably true. Still, it has been clearly demonstrated that 
men and women, both inside and outside the church, 
are vitally interested in religion to-day despite all in- 
dications to the contrary, if it but be presented along 
broad and sympathetic lines. 

While the subject of comparative religions is not new, 
still it was the unanimous feeling of all who were 
privileged to attend this course, that these lectures, 
coming from prominent scholars and leaders in this 
special field of study, were worthy a wider hearing and 
were far too valuable to remain in manuscript form. 
Accordingly they are given to the public in this volume, 
in the hope that they may not only bring, in popular 
form, a clearer conception of the great religions of the 
world, but also that they may make more real the 
truth of the words : " Religions are many, — Religion is 
one." 

vii 



viii PREFACE 

Especial thanks are due to Dr. Smith, who collaborated 
with me in arranging the course ; to each of the lecturers, 
who not only gave of his time and thought most cheer- 
fully, but also has consented to the publication of his 
lecture ; and to all whose presence at the lectures when 
delivered furnished inspiration to the speakers. 

J. Herman Randall. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER PAGE 

I. The Beginnings of Religion i 

II. Confucius and the Chinese 13 

III. Brahmanism 29 

IV. Buddhism: The Personality and Influ- 

ence of its Founder 38 

V. Zoroaster and the Avesta 55 

VI. The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria. 70 
VII. Some Religious Beliefs of the Egyp- 
tians 83 

VIII. The Religion of the Early Teutons . . . 100 

IX. The Religion of Ancient Greece 117 

X. The Religion of the Ancient Romans . . 134 

XI. Judaism : Its Principles and Its Hopes . . 156 

XII. Mohammed and Islam 166 

XIII. Christianity 201 

XIV. Roman Catholicism 214 

XV. Greek Orthodox Catholicity 234 

XVI. Protestantism 261 

XVII. Reform Judaism 275 

XVIII. The Religious Aspects of Socialism .... 288 

XIX. Science and Theology 303 

XX. The Symphony of Religions 320 

XXI. Religion in Education 336 

XXII. The Religion of the Future 348 

ix 



THE BEGINNINGS OF RELIGION 
By George William Knox, D.D., LL.D. 

Professor of Philosophy and History of Religion, Union Theological 

Seminary 

My subject in many respects is a difficult one, because 
the data are so incomplete and confused. When we 
speak of the beginnings of religion we are talking of 
the religion of primitive man, a term, which is used 
in a secondary sense. We really do not know anything 
of primitive man, for the earliest records, in the nature 
of the case, show men already in an advanced state of 
civilization, as in Egypt and Assyria, and there were 
countless generations, doubtless hundreds, perhaps thou- 
sands, before we reach those who were really primitive. 
We are obliged to use the term in this sense: The 
earliest men of any race of whom we have definite 
information. Primitive men are living in the world 
now, and yet before them there have been as many 
generations as before us; all contributing to the low 
state of culture which exists among them. 

So much as to the meaning of primitive man, we now 
turn to his general conceptions, because we must know 
his thoughts as to the world before we can understand 
his thoughts as to God — for never is religion some- 
thing separated from man's general culture; never is 
theology separated from his general views as to the 
world. Temporarily, perhaps, there may be a separation, 
but never for long; so that we must know a man's 
economic condition, his social condition and his scien- 

I 



2 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

tific ideas if we are to understand his religion. Let me 
repeat that in this fashion: We never can take man's 
religion and set it off by itself and consider it as a 
thing apart, because his religion is just himself func- 
tioning in a certain way. 

Of primitive man, I am going to use the Japanese 
as my illustration, because I happen to know more about 
Japan than any other country, save my own, having 
studied it more thoroughly, and besides it is an admi- 
rable illustration. So that what I say will apply very 
largely to primitive man in all countries. For man is 
much the same the world over, the similarities being 
far more and greater than the divergencies; for he re- 
sponds in the same fashion to his environment and the 
various influences which are about him. 

Man was primitive in Japan not so very long ago. 
That is to say, thirteen or fourteen hundred years ago 
the Japanese were as savage and perhaps more so than 
were our Germanic ancestors in the forests of Europe. 
It is often mistakenly said that the Japanese civilization 
far antedates our own, but in fact it is, comparatively 
speaking, a modern civilization, not earlier in its begin- 
ning than the fifth century of our era. Then they were 
dwelling in the land which is still their own, but with 
almost nothing excepting the land by which we should 
recognize them as the same people. None of the elements 
of their present civilization were present. They lived 
in wretched huts, for the most part by the sides of bays 
and rivers. They had no art; they had no letters; they 
had no books, of course; and therefore, no education. 
Their numerals ran only to ten. They had no organized 
government. They had only the rude beginnings of 
agriculture. The great employments of the men were 
hunting and fishing and fighting. It was in the intervals 
of peace that they cultivated to some extent agriculture, 



THE BEGINNINGS OF RELIGION 3 

with rice as the chief crop. I might say, incidentally, 
that they had no tea. Think of Japan without tea, or 
silk or lacquer ! 

Their social organization was as rude as their eco- 
nomic organization. They were just emerging from that 
state of society that sociologists call the " horde," — that 
is, the almost unorganized state of society, Family re- 
lationships were not yet very firmly established, for the 
original organization of men is not that of the family 
but in unions for certain pursuits of a rude and ele- 
mentary nature. In the family the mother was the chief 
factor and the father was often not even recognized. 
There could not be anything like a cult of ancestors in 
such a state, because ancestors were not known or re- 
membered. A man might marry his half sister, or his 
own sister, in the early stage, and there was no thought 
of any impropriety in such a union. Government was 
as unorganized, naturally and necessarily, as the family. 
There was neither imperial line established, nor central- 
ized government. The myth of the establishment of 
the imperial line, now set forth by the Japanese Govern- 
ment as if it were sober history, was scarcely known, 
if indeed it was known at all. 

Thought was as crude as all else. Scarcely was there 
the beginning of anything that can be called science. 
The ideas about the world were narrow and confused. 
The world was just the little part of Japan which they 
knew. Over above it was heaven, and, as with all prim- 
itive people, not very far off. Once upon a time — " And 
once upon a time," is as good chronology as you can 
expect in any primitive records — heaven and earth 
were connected by a ladder, which was not precisely 
the ladder that Jacob saw, and the kind of beings who 
went up and down it were quite distinct from those he 
observed. The ladder still lies in Japan, in the Province 



4 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

of Tongo. And one may see it for himself, if he likes, 
or has any doubt about the story. By measuring the 
ladder, that long curious series of rock formations, 
which suggested, of course, the myth, we find that heaven 
was about twenty-four thousand feet from the earth. 
Up and down this ladder from heaven to earth went 
gods, some having tails and some without tails; some 
being manlike and some beastlike. Heaven was a place 
like the earth, with its rivers and plains and hills, with 
freshets and streams. Heaven differed from earth only 
in position — being the place up above the sky, a little 
way off, corresponding almost point for point with this 
earth on which we dwell. Hades was a place below the 
earth. If one could find his way to there he would find 
there again just what he finds here on the earth — not 
a very bad place to go to. It has cottages and fields 
and men and women, and differs chiefly in its indistinct- 
ness from the earth on which we dwell. It is quite true 
that in some stories of Hades it is a disagreeable place 
of abode, and one would rather be excused from a pro- 
longed residence. 

So if any one can go down below the ocean, as indeed 
favored mortals have occasionally succeeded in doing, 
he shall find again land with cottages, and maidens and 
meadows and flowers and beasts and hunting just as 
here on earth. For, and this is the main point, there 
was no distinction in the minds of these people, between 
heaven, earth and Hades, but all are on the same pattern, 
and in like fashion there is no clear distinction concern- 
ing anything. That is a broad statement but it can be 
substantiated. All of our distinctions and classifications 
are wanting. For example, there is no real distinction 
between a man and a beast, or between a beast and an 
inanimate object, and therefore all kinds of stories are 
credible. It is entirely credible, for example, that a 



THE BEGINNINGS OF RELIGION 5 

god who was getting into difficulties with an enemy and 
had a woman whom he wanted to protect, picked her 
up and stuck her in his hair and she became a comb; 
then later on he took out this comb and it became a 
woman again. There is no autobiographical account of 
what she thought during the process. A man can turn 
into a dove and then turn back into a man. A tree under 
certain circumstances can speak. I will not detain you 
with illustrations. All primitive religion is full of such 
ideas, stories which show that our distinctions are not 
present, even such obvious classifications as animate 
and inanimate, as animal and man. These classifications 
grow up slowly with the development of knowledge. 
So, likewise, there was no critical inquiry into any- 
thing whatsoever. Man was still a child in his intellect 
and full of curiosity, always asking after the cause of 
things that happen to strike his imagination. He was 
like a child in this respect also, that, though prolific 
in questions he was not critical as to answers, for any will 
be satisfactory, especially a story. Primitive man asks 
many questions and is satisfied with the first answer that 
is given him. The answers are, for the most part, from 
obvious analogies when they are not stories. Thus 
man has always asked after the beginning of things. 
How could he help asking that? When he knows him- 
self making beginnings, forming things and creating 
things, it is inevitable that his curiosity should lead him 
to ask, How are things around us made, the heavens 
and the earth and the world and all things? The Japan- 
ese answers to this question are interesting and instruc- 
tive. It is true that the answers are not classified as 
I now classify them, but one must pick them out of a 
confused mass. There are four different answers to the 
question, " How are things formed ? " First, the original 
gods sprouted out of chaos, just as when in the spring 



6 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

from a great swamp come vegetable growths; in the 
same fashion originally heaven and earth and all things 
constituted a vast morass, and then out of this morass, 
whose surface was oil-like, there sprouted the original 
gods — surely a simple and natural explanation. Or, 
second: from the filth which one of the gods washed 
from his left eye when he had returned from an unpleas- 
ant encounter in Hades, there sprung gods innumerable, 
among others the sun. As when filth is put down upon 
the ground, pretty soon it swarms with insects, so did 
the gods originally swarm and were formed. Third, 
as certain worms cut in two form two worms, so, if you 
cut up a god in a certain way, you have two gods and 
that accounts for a lot more. Then, in the last place, 
gods are born just as men are born. Indeed, the world 
is born just as men are born. The mountains are liter- 
ally the children of certain gods. They were born small 
and they have grown to their present size. 

We see these are very primitive answers, and do 
not give us a Creator, because perhaps man as yet was 
not employed largely in making things. In China is a 
different answer, an account of a creator who cut things 
out of a great rock. They have pictures of him with a 
chisel doing the job. 

Many other questions primitive man is certain to ask. 
Thus he notices queer objects and asks after the reasons 
for profiles in mountains, resemblances to animals in 
stones and trees ; whence come traditions as to 
pillars, stones, trees, mountains, waterfalls and occur- 
rences. 

And once more, nothing perhaps is more prolific in 
causing primeval wisdom than words, especially coin- 
cidences in sound. Why is this place called Suga? Be- 
cause, once upon a time a certain god passing through 
this place, finding himself weary, rested and said " Suga 



THE BEGINNINGS OF RELIGION 7 

Sugashii," that is, " I am refreshed." Therefore, the 
name of the place is called Suga until this day. 

The ancient records are filled with these etymologies, 
containing no scientific truth, but giving the natural ex- 
planation suggested to minds struck by the oddity of 
names. So it is everywhere — a characteristic of every 
primitive race, that such folk etymologies indicate a 
stage of culture where man knows nothing about philology 
but is interested in the marvelous and his contentment is 
increased if he can find a story in explanation. 

Thus a mass of stories grows up, some having to do 
with the phenomena of nature, some with the etymol- 
ogy of names and some with dimly remembered tradi- 
tions of heroes and all mingled together in a confused 
mass. It is often difficult to decide whether a given 
myth has to do with some phenomena of nature or 
whether there are mingled in it elements of tradition 
concerning some hero. Besides, there are the beginnings 
of poetry, as in the earliest stratum of our Biblical his- 
tory, snatches of war songs, love songs and scarcely any 
which are religious. 

In the early records is the story of man's first at- 
tempts to control nature. He was highly excitable then 
and a prey to fear — far more so than in our modern 
times. Nor is this surprising, for he did not under- 
stand the forces of nature and was eager to control them. 

How shall such a world as I have been describing, be 
controlled? How can man get on with it, so to speak? 
In various ways, I have space to refer only very briefly 
to two or three of them. Words excite wonder, they are 
not mere means of communication between folks. A 
word has mysterious power, when it has passed the lips it 
cannot be recalled. So with Abraham, when he had 
blessed one of his sons, he could not bless the other ; one 
thing had gone forth from his lips, not to be recalled or 



8 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

repeated. So in the Arabian Nights, the right word 
opens the door to the cave, but when inside of the cave 
if one has forgotten that word, there is no power that 
can take him out. Even so with ignorant men to-day, 
they fear an unknown tongue because they imagine a 
curse, and a curse is not merely an idle word, but a 
fact. All primitive men believe that nature is con- 
trolled by ritual ; the man who knows the proper words 
and the proper acts controls nature and it obeys him. 
A name may be very dangerous, so the Jews would not 
pronounce the name of their God — because of a mys- 
terious fear that he who uses the name calls down upon 
himself the jealous anger of God. So among all prim- 
itive people the name of a god is tabooed, that is, for- 
bidden. No one can use it except the priests who know 
the magical formulas, and who thus can control. An 
ordinary man using these magical formulas, is like an 
ignorant man walking into a vast hall full of machinery, 
taking hold of the various levers and starting the ma- 
chines. He lets forth powers that will very likely de- 
stroy him and those about him. A prayer in an unknown 
tongue is all the better, even though the priest does not 
know what he means, for thus the mystery is deepened, 
and the strange words, for their very strangeness, are all 
the more efficacious. 

The second method of controlling nature, is by sim- 
ilarity. People whistle to raise the wind. Why? It is 
simply a bit of primitive religion or primitive science. 
To produce any effect you do something like it, and 
because the wind whistles, so if you whistle, pretty soon 
the wind will begin to whistle, a world-wide fancy, based 
on forms of universal reasoning. 

Then primitive man thinks that the powers of nature 
can be controlled as men are controlled. How are men 
controlled? Partly by flattery. And so are the gods. 



THE BEGINNINGS OF RELIGION 9 

If you want to get something from them, you begin by 
telling them how great, how splendid, how altogether 
magnificent they are, how good they are to all who come 
and serve them, and then you humbly and respectfully 
present your petition. But sometimes the god does not 
answer by flattery. Then what shall be done? So some- 
times men do not answer to flattery. Then perhaps they 
may be won by a gift. Of course, this is all of the past, 
here and in New York nobody thinks that he can get 
any favors from the government by gifts, but in primi- 
tive society in the long past, there were such things, 
and men supposed that they could get the favor of the 
gods also by gifts. Therefore, they offered sacrifices, 
the kind of things they liked themselves, — meat offer- 
ings and burnt offerings, rice, flesh and fruits. They 
began with small gifts, putting, so to speak, the smallest 
coins into the collection. If the god did not respond 
to these small contributions they increased the gift, and at 
last, in dire extremity, they would give in extravagance 
that which was dearest to their souls — their sons, their 
horses, their wives, and now and then one would offer 
himself as a sacrifice. 

It was so much gift for so much gain, as in all primitive 
religions we find bargains. We remember that famous 
one which the great ancestor of the Jews made when he 
was starting off on his rather dubious journey, offering 
a tenth of all his gains, a pretty good bargain in the 
circumstances. But men have always been driving hard 
bargains with their gods : " I will give you so much if 
you will give me so much," with coaxing, and wheedling 
— and the bargain sometimes a failure after all. 

But perhaps I may be asked where, in all that I have 
been saying, is religion? I have given the primitive 
beginnings of society, the beginnings of science both 
theoretical in man's restless curiosity and practical in 



io UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

his attempt to control nature. But where in all this is 
religion ? 

If we ask for a theology, we surely shall not find it, 
that is in our sense. Among the Japanese, for example, 
there were none of our old stories, of the Deluge, of the 
primitive state of innocence, of Eden, of a Fall. It is 
strange indeed that all these things are wanting. None 
of the mythologies which belong to Greece, based on the 
splendid procession of Day and Night, or of movement 
of the sun across the sky, is there. Neither is there 
any theory, for example, as to God's justice or sense of 
sin, or notion that man needs to be forgiven; or that 
there is such relation between man and God as that of 
righteousness. Ethics is not prominent nor is there a 
trace of the spiritual life. The prayers of primitive man 
are not yearnings after spirituality; nor so much as re- 
quests for immortality or life after death. What then do 
men want? Why, the things of this life around 
about us, deliverance from sudden death, from illness, an 
abundant supply of fruits of the earth, the things which 
belong to the body. These are the things only that oc- 
cupy their minds, and therefore they are the things which 
they seek from the gods. 

What, then, is the central attribute of the gods in prim- 
itive religions? Simply this, that they are marvelous, 
that they are above us. Indeed, the Japanese word for 
god is Kami, that is, " above." One of their writers 
tells us very explicitly, that when we say that God is an 
exalted being, it does not mean ethically exalted; it does 
not mean that he is holy, or wise, but in general only 
that God is something above us. Now the characteristic 
that strikes man's mind, is power. So that the first at- 
tribute of God is power, not righteousness ; let me repeat, 
not wisdom, but power. That constitutes the god. That 
which is more powerful than man, that which impresses 



THE BEGINNINGS OF RELIGION n 

the imagination, is God ; and it does not matter as to the 
race and nature of the being; a strange monster of the 
deep ; a hero whose personal power compels his fellows to 
follow him; a smoking volcano; the quaking earth; the 
strange processes by which flowers and the fruits of the 
earth bring forth and come to their maturity; anything 
we please, so long as it is marvelous, and impresses the 
imagination; so long as it calls forth from man's soul 
feelings of wonder, of awe, of reverence, of independence. 
Man begins his religious career on earth by worshiping 
the objects of nature round about him. The river, the 
mountain, the strange rocks, the strange trees, the sun, 
the moon, the stars, the processes of nature — all these 
things and a thousand more are to him god, that which 
he is to adore. 

It is perfectly apparent, therefore, why all of man's 
early thought has to do with what we may call religion. 
It is either all religious, or none of it religious, just as we 
please. It is precisely the exception, the marvel, the 
•wonder, that impressing his imagination calls forth the 
questions of which I have given samples. And it is 
the marvelous, the wonderful, the exceptional, which calls 
forth his feelings of awe and reverence and dependence, 
calls forth his feelings of awe and reverence and de- 
fendence. 

Therefore, primitive science constitutes primitive the- 
ology. The original is to be found in curiosity, while the 
origin of his religion is to be found in the feelings 
excited by that which is greater than himself, before 
which he humbles himself in reverence and in awe; to- 
gether with his feelings of dependence upon this power. 
He always knows that he is dependent upon powers not 
himself. He is all too conscious perhaps of his weak- 
ness. He is filled with fears, and as the night comes on 
and he hears the beasts stirring in their lairs and feels 



12 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

himself surrounded by dangers, he knows not what, 
he lifts up his hands and utters magic formulae, his 
primitive expressions of dependence upon powers which 
he knows not, save that they are above him and near him. 
Out of these feelings which constitute on the one side, 
at least, the highest of man's nature, have come all the 
religions of the world, and so we may ask ourselves a 
question, What is it that we reverence, and worship, 
what is it that we feel ourselves ultimately dependent 
upon? Answer and we shall describe our God; not the 
God of the catechism perhaps, but if with honesty any 
one will tell what it is that in his innermost soul he most 
profoundly worships, and then if he will tell us what it is 
in the ultimate emergencies of life on which he is de- 
pendent, he will give us his real theology and a de- 
scription of his god. Doubtless we are removed from 
primitive man, who worships the power manifested in 
the marvels of nature, curious and undiscriminating. 
He worships mysterious power on which he feels him- 
self dependent. This is his theology and the resultant 
feelings constitute his religion. 



II 

CONFUCIUS AND THE CHINESE 
By Friederich Hirth, Ph.D. 

Dean Lung Professor of Chinese, Columbia University 

Confucius and the Chinese — the two names are in- 
separable. Neither of the two would be what it is 
without the other. For Confucius did not make the 
Chinese ; he was made by them. Nor would the Chinese 
be what they are without him. 

The spirit of Confucianism may be felt in what little 
we know about the most ancient history of China. The 
sage himself formed his ideas by the study of old tradi- 
tions. A good deal of what he taught his nation, both by 
the lessons given to his disciples and by the example set 
in his conduct, was derived from traditions, partly in 
the shape of old records, handed down through genera- 
tions among the Chinese themselves. To this fact his 
great influence on the spiritual development of the 
Chinese is probably due to a large extent. In any other 
part of the world his name would perhaps be forgotten, 
while the sages of the west would have shared the same 
fate, had they preached their morals in China. 

Confucius was a contemporary of the Pythagorean 
school, though Pythagoras himself is supposed to have 
died about twenty-five years before the Chinese sage. 
With all the fundamental differences in the systems 
taught, the two philosophies present certain similarities 
in their views, chief among which is the great importance 
they both attached to the observance of ceremonies in 

13 



i 4 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

life and the purification of man's character. It looks as 
if certain ideas bringing about changes in social life and 
in the world of thought were hanging in the air. How- 
ever widely different the philosophical systems presented 
to the people in the east and in the west may have been, 
there was a period before Pythagoras when Greek think- 
ers like Thales and Anaximander did their best to fathom 
the mysteries of nature. Similarly the appearance of 
Confucius was preceded by that of Lau-tz'i, the metaphysi- 
cal philosopher. Confucius was as much in contrast with 
Lau-tzi* as Pythagoras was with his predecessors of the 
Ionian school. His school, though vigorously revived 
in the middle ages, may be said to have flourished from 
the master's own time down to Mencius, his last great 
interpreter during the Chou period, who died in B.C. 
289, just about the time when the Pythagorean school 
had seen its last days. 

The life of Confucius can be told but very briefly in 
the space at my disposal. He was born in 551 B.C., as 
the son of an old man of seventy, a former soldier of 
strong physique. His home was near the present city of 
K'ii-fou in the Shan-tung province. Here thousands of 
individuals bearing his family name K'ung, live in all 
possible stations of life, from their senior, the Duke of 
K'ung, down to those engaged in the lowest occupations 
such as wheelbarrow drivers, who all are able to trace 
their pedigree to the great sage — evidently the oldest 
acknowledged nobility of the world. The main feature 
of his later character showed itself in his early boyhood, 
when he was said to like nothing better than playing at 
the arrangement of sacrificial vessels and at postures of 
ceremony. He married early and was at first employed 
in clerical work, when, at the age of twenty, he began 
to teach what he had just studied, the traditions laid down 
in former generations. From these old traditions he 



CONFUCIUS AND THE CHINESE 15 

formed both his views on the world and his own charac- 
ter. He sketched out in his mind the standard of man as 
he ought to be, the " Superior Man," or Kun-tz'i. This 
was not the autocratic superman of Nietzsche, the real 
enemy of all social order, but a well-behaved gentleman, 
who carefully avoids every outburst of genius, bowing at 
all times to the etiquette of good society. His ideas on 
what he considered the correct behavior in all situations 
of life were laid down partly in the conversations he held 
with his pupils and others, subsequently placed on re- 
cord in works now forming part of the so-called Chinese 
classics, partly in the example of his own private life. 
In this respect his influence on Chinese social life has 
made itself felt ever since his time down, to the present 
day. 

If the somewhat one-sided Confucianist accounts of 
the earliest development of Chinese social life, as rep- 
resented in the classic called Chou-li and describing the 
rites of the Chou dynasty, can be trusted, the tendency to 
force all possible acts, acts of government as well as 
of private life, into rules and regulations had existed 
centuries before Confucius. The principle according to 
which man is to be bound down by etiquette in his do- 
ings was, therefore, not an innovation, but Confucius 
applied it to man as an individual in relation to himself 
and society. The success of his work as a teacher of his 
nation was, therefore, due not only to himself, but also to 
the fact that the Chinese world was much better prepared 
for his teachings than, for instance, the people of India 
or of Greece would have been at his time. There was, of 
course, no lack of men who would not fall in with his 
ideas; and these ideas probably did not conquer his con- 
temporaries all at once, as they did gradually in the 
course of centuries. 

As a young man Confucius is reported to have paid a 



16 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

visit to the old philosopher Lau-tzi, who was living in 
the emperor's capital as keeper of the State archives. If 
this report is nothing more than a legend, as some critics 
believe, the hidden meaning of it may be that Tauism as 
represented in the person of its supposed founder, Lau- 
tzi, was known in China before Confucius, and that the 
adherents to the Tauist system did not approve of the 
Confucian ideas. But judging from the account of the 
anecdote, for which the historian Ssi-ma Ts'ler is re- 
sponsible, Lau-tzi looked upon Confucius as an ambitious 
young man, who was on the wrong track altogether and he 
gave him a lesson amounting to a rebufT. The "superior 
man " of Confucius was full of his dignity, with all 
his ceremonial; Lau-tzi' has an entirely different idea on 
the subject, and the reply he is supposed to have given 
Confucius reveals a peculiarity of character which I 
have noticed frequently in China with men of merit in 
high positions, that modesty we find only with really 
superior men who need not trouble their heads about 
the recognition of the world. Lau-tzi in that interview 
appears as the wiser man. Among other remarks he 
is made to say : " I have heard that a prudent merchant 
will keep his valuables concealed in the depth of his 
storehouses as though he had none to show; similarly 
the superior man may be full of merit and yet his ap- 
pearance may be plain and simple. Discard withal 
haughtiness and these many desires, with outward ap- 
pearances and licentious schemes. These are all of no 
advantage to you." 

The warning, if it was ever given, had no effect on 
Confucius, although it hit the nail on the head in reveal- 
ing the really weak point in Confucius* philosophy of 
life. There was, and there is even at the present day, 
a great deal too much of those outward appearances 
in the private life of the Chinese. Lau-tzi', after a life 



CONFUCIUS AND THE CHINESE 17 

spent in deep thought, had become indifferent to the 
formalities of his surroundings. Confucius was the 
very reverse. He took the greatest interest in the life of 
his fellow-creatures. To reform social life in China was 
the main ambition of his work and to his influence 
must be ascribed a great deal of what is characteristic 
in the social habits of his people. In this respect Con- 
fucius probably has no equal in history, unless it be 
Christ. 

After his visit to Lau-tz'i, Confucius returned to his 
native state in the present Shan-tung. Political troubles 
then caused his Duke in 517 B.C. to leave the country 
and live in the flourishing state of Ts'i in North Shan- 
tung, and Confucius followed him there. His ambition 
was to become chief adviser to the duke of that country, 
but although he was held in the highest esteem by the 
ruler, the officials of the country managed to prevent 
his taking any active part in the government. The 
sage, therefore, returned to Lu, his native state, where 
he kept aloof from all politics. After fifteen years spent 
in literary work, he was appointed magistrate in Chung- 
tu, one of the districts in his country. Here he had at 
last the much coveted opportunity to put his social 
theories to a practical test. He now tried by all means 
to make the people under his jurisdiction good and vir- 
tuous. All the pedantry which, even to this day, governs 
the life of educated Chinese was now tried by way of 
experiment on the people of Chung-tu. Confucius' 
government became one of interference with all individual 
liberty. Every act of life had its prescribed ceremonial, 
even the food which the different classes of people were 
allowed to eat was regulated ; males and females were 
kept apart from each other in the streets. Such a 
system enforced by the mayor of New York would be 
sure to result in revolution; but the Confucian chron- 



18 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

iclers maintain that the good behavior of the people 
of Chung-tu soon became notorious all over China and 
that the princes of neighboring states were anxious 
to imitate the magistrate's style of administration. His 
own prince rewarded him by his promotion to the post 
of Minister of Justice. In this position he gave further 
evidence of his administrative talent. If all these accounts 
are not pure inventions manufactured by his admirers, 
Confucius must have had something in his character 
which made the people pliable in his hands. If they did 
not revolt, this may be due to the high estimation in 
which he was held on account of his absolute honesty 
and purity of life. His moral code was of the highest 
standard, and while exacting some approach to that 
standard from others, he did not shrink from cutting 
into his own flesh. This was the case when his duke 
was led by the intrigues of a neighboring court to accept 
the gift of a harem of eighty beauties and a hundred 
and twenty fine horses. Confucius was so disgusted 
by this, that he withdrew from the court into private 
life again. He now wandered about for fourteen years. 
His first exile led him to a state whose duke tried to 
attach him to his court on a handsome salary. The 
duke was not all that might be desired from a moral 
point of view, his consort being a woman of bad reputa- 
tion, Confucius never liked to meet her, but had to sub- 
mit to the court etiquette. When once the duke invited 
him for a drive through the streets, the duke with his 
paramour drove in front, followed by a carriage contain- 
ing the sage. Seeing this, the crowd made fun of the 
cortege by coining the saying, " Lust in front and virtue 
behind." Confucius could not stand these associations 
and left the country, knocking in vain at the doors of 
powerful princes, none of whom seemed to be willing 
to give him the desired high position. The personal 



CONFUCIUS AND THE CHINESE 19 

favor of princes is of little use to him who is not able to 
meet the intrigues of their surroundings. This was the 
case when Confucius had almost pursuaded one of the 
most powerful kings of the Chinese Confederation to 
fall in with his reforms. The king's prime minister 
warned the king against the sage and his disciples as a 
set of men who might some day become a danger to the 
king's own government. All his attempts to gain the 
ear of those who might be instrumental in carrying out 
his educational plans had failed and where he was well 
received, his obstinacy in refusing every compromise with 
that vicious world which he could not change spoiled 
the best chances he might have had. At the age of sixty- 
eight he was recalled to his native state. There he lived 
another five years in retirement, when he died in 479 B.C., 
mourned by his disciples, who had been dearer to him 
than even his own family. The names of his disciples 
such as Tzi-lu, Tzi-kung and others are constantly men- 
tioned in the classics known as the " Four Books," as 
those of his interlocutors to whom he explained his 
views. One of them, by name Tsong Ts'an, who out- 
lived him many years, was the reputed author of the 
" Canon of Filial Piety," (Hiau-king.) He had become 
the prototype of millions of dutiful sons, for he himself 
was a model of good behavior in this respect. The 
idol he worshiped beyond anything was his mother. 
Once he refused to enter a village because its name, 
" Shong-mu," meaning, " better than a mother," dis- 
pleased him, and he divorced his wife because she had 
served his mother an unsavory dish. Filial love has 
ever since been considered one of the very highest features 
in man's character. Confucius himself had been a model 
from his point of view in the affection shown in the 
mourning for his mother, whom he lost at the age of 
twenty-three. He is said to have been not half so much 



20 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

attached to his son or even his wife. Love, coupled 
with implicit obedience to one's parents has been with 
some noble-minded Chinese more than a mere virtue 
and is cherished almost with the ardor of a passion ; 
witness the celebrated example of the late Emperor 
Kwang-sii, who sacrificed the entire happiness of his 
life to what he considered his duty towards his parent, 
in this case his foster-mother, the empress dowager. 
Tsong Ts'an, to whom nothing in this world could be 
" better than a mother," would have said, " he is right." 
The respect shown by a grown up son to his aged mother 
has to make up for many humiliations woman has to 
suffer from Chinese social prejudices ; who as a daughter 
has to obey her parents, as a wife her husband and as a 
widow her son. Dutiful sons, of which kind there are 
many in China, know how to make this last one of the 
" Three Obediences " of woman pleasant. 

The influence Confucius exercised on his nation may 
be considered from a threefold point of view. He was 
in the first instance connected with a number of those 
old works known as the " Five Canons," which he did 
not write, but recommended, collected and edited; then 
his views have been preserved in the shape of conversa- 
tions with his disciples, forming the substance of the 
so-called " Four Books ;" and finally there is the tradition, 
perhaps not absolutely reliable, but characteristic of his 
reputed manner, the gossip which surrounds a great 
man and which has in reality little to do with the great- 
ness of his mind. 

The " Five Canons," and the " Four Books," now con- 
stitute the works called by the late Professor Legge, 
their translator and commentator, the Chinese classics. 
Among the Canons, the oldest is the " Canon of Changes," 
in Chinese, I-king. It represents a system of occultism 
based on the Chinese natural philosophy, according to 



CONFUCIUS AND THE CHINESE 21 

which all things existing must be either male or female. 
Those two principles are said to have been symbolized 
by continuous and broken lines, the former representing 
the male, the latter the female principle. In its simplest 
combination three of these lines with the possible per- 
mutations yield eight diagrams, the so-called Pa-kua, 
the invention of which is ascribed to the fabulous em- 
peror Fu-hi, whose lifetime the Chinese place in the 
twenty-ninth century B.C. Each of these diagrams 
has its distinct meaning. By doubling the three lines up 
to six, the number of diagrams becomes sixty-four, each 
of which again represents certain mystic associations 
based on the preponderance and relative positions of male 
or female lines contained in it. Under the supposed 
authorship of Won-wang, the father of the first emperor 
of the Chou dynasty, the explanation and commentary 
grew into a book known as the " Canon of Changes," 
representing a complicated system of geometric science, 
highly valued by the Chinese, because it was recommended 
by Confucius himself, but with very little attraction for 
European taste. The book is of importance on account 
of its high antiquity and the great influence it has at all 
times had on public and private life in China as an in- 
strument of augury. 

The second Canon is the Shu-king, often called the 
" Book of History." It contains accounts of some of the 
earliest, probably legendary emperors, " model emperors," 
as we may call them, because they have been at all 
times held up as the acme of perfection in good govern- 
ment. Such were the emperors Yau, Shun and Yu. 
On the other hand certain bad rulers are represented in 
grossly exaggerated colors, and the history of China 
is brought down to the early part of the Chou dynasty. 
Professor Grabe may be right in calling the Shu-king 



22 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

a " poetical production." Certainly it is the only account 
we possess of that early period. 

In the " Canon of Odes," or Shi-king, we have one 
of the most important works of Chinese literature. It is 
a collection of folk-songs and ballads, edited by Con- 
fucius, which throws most valuable light on the cul- 
tured life of the Chinese in pre-Confucian times. 

The " Canon of Rites," or Li-ki, is a collection of rules 
describing to the minutest detail, the ceremonial to be 
observed by a Chinese gentleman on all occasions of 
daily life. 

The last canon is the so-called, " Spring and Autumn," 
in Chinese, Ch'un-ts'iu. It consists of the dry-as-dust 
annals of the State of Lu, of which Confucius was a 
native, and is supposed to have been compiled by the 
sage himself. To us it is not half as valuable as its 
commentary, the Tso-chuan, ascribed to one Tso-K'iu 
Ming, a copious extension of it; but it is one of the 
best historical accounts that could be found in any liter- 
ature, covering the period 722 to 481 B.C. 

These are the five works supposed to have been edited 
or written, by Confucius. The " Four Books " tell us 
much more about his own views. For, although not 
written by him, nor even by his immediate disciples, they 
contain, in the shape of accounts of conversations, the 
main substance of his teachings. 

The most important of these is the work called Lun- 
yii, i.e. " Conversations," or " Discourses," or as Legge 
translates it somewhat freely, " Confucian Analects." It 
is supposed to have been written down a long time after 
Confucius' death by the followers of his disciples. The 
keynote of these discourses is what may be called the 
Chinese national virtue, filial love. However, the term 
usually so translated covers rather more than we would 
place under the Mosaic command to honor father and 



CONFUCIUS AND THE CHINESE 23 

mother. According to Confucius filial love is the basis 
of all that is good and proper in family life ; and brotherly 
submission, the respect due to the senior by the junior 
is closely connected with it. Starting from the family 
discipline, Confucius compares to it the discipline of the 
nation. For the nation is like a family, though on a 
larger scale. The filial love of the people is shown in 
the obedience to the people's parents, the ruler and his 
government. For filial love, according to the sage's 
own definition, shows itself in obedience. The obedience 
due to a father from his child is also due to the sovereign 
from his subjects. Man in his relation to the world is 
considered from five points of view: (1) sovereign 
considered from five points of view: (1) sovereign 
and subject; (2) father and son; (3) husband and wife; 
(4) elder and younger brother, and (5) friend and friend. 
In each of these relations man has his duties, the proper 
discharge of which by all will insure good govern- 
ment and general peace and happiness. Loyalty towards 
one's government, parent, husband or wife, brother and 
friend, determines the character of the Kun-tzi, the supe- 
rior, or ideal man. 

The second and third of the " Four Books " are shorter 
treatises, namely, " The Great Learning," or Ta-hio, 
based on knowledge as a means of reforming society, and 
" The Doctrine of the Mean," or Chung-yung, the golden 
mean which the superior man is advised to follow in all 
his doings. He ought to do the right thing for its own 
sake, whether the world regards him or not. 

The last, and perhaps the most important of the " Four 
Books," is the work known as " Mencius." Mencius is 
the Latinized name of the Chinese Mong-tzi, i.e. " The 
Philosopher Mong," just as the Chinese K'ung fu-tzi, 
i. e., the " Philosopher Kung," has been changed into Con- 
fucius. The work called " Mencius " is similar in style 



24 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

to the Confucian Analects. It also consists of conversa- 
tions, in which Mencius is the chief interlocutor. Men- 
cius flourished nearly two hundred years after Confu- 
cius, his lifetime reaching from 372 to 289 B.C. One 
of the very few facts handed down about his life is his 
early education by the most excellent of mothers. 
" M6ng-mu," the mother of Mencius, is as familiar a 
figure to the Chinese as the " Mother of the Gracchi " 
was to the people of Rome, and quite a number of anec- 
dotes are current about her and the boy who was destined 
to gain such high fame. If Confucius found it hard to 
get his contemporaries to listen to his teachings, Men- 
cius had to fight his way under still greater difficulties. 
Times had changed a good deal in the last two hundred 
years. From the works which happen to have been 
preserved to our days, we may conclude that the early 
Confucianists were scarcely at all troubled by the antag- 
onism of other schools, unless such antagonism con- 
sisted in their treating adversaries with silence. Men- 
cius arose in a world more distant than ever from the 
Confucian ideals. He lived in the period of Chinese 
history known as that of the " Contending States," when 
China was divided into numerous political factions and 
the different states made war against each other. Liter- 
ature was then the exact counterpart of the political 
situation. The philosophers of the age took part in the 
general strife and applied their doctrines to practical 
state life. The instability which knew of no equilibrium 
among the contesting powers and which caused even 
conservative minds to become accustomed to the most 
unexpected changes in politics, was coupled with a hith- 
erto unprecedented freedom of thought in the ranks of 
thinkers and writers. The most heretical views on state 
and private life were advanced and gained public ad- 
herence. Mencius, therefore, could not confine his work 



CONFUCIUS AND THE CHINESE 25 

to teaching, he had also to defend his views against the 
open and silent attacks of rival systems. In this respect 
he became a real tower of strength to Confucianism at 
his time. 

Of the several philosophical systems created during 
the period of the Contending States, the one which was 
most opposed to the solid ethical character of the Con- 
fucian school was probably that utterly uncanonical phi- 
losophy of Yang Chu. He was a self-made man and had 
not studied old books like Confucius, nor did he trouble 
himself about rival systems ; but his views on the world 
and human nature were so audacious as to attract atten- 
tion with or without approval. Yang Chu was essen- 
tially a pessimist. He tries in the first instance to answer 
the question whether life is actually worth living. Ac- 
cording to him it is not. A great part of man's life, he 
says, is spent either in a state of indifference, during 
infancy and extreme old age, or in sleep, and during 
many hours in the daytime, not counting the hours spent 
in pain and sickness, sorrow and bitterness. In a hun- 
dred years a man may live, there may remain ten years 
actually worth counting, but not even in them will be 
found an hour of smiling self-abandonment without the 
shadow of solicitude. Death awaits us all alike, whether 
we die at the age of ten or a hundred, and once man's 
bones are rotten it does not matter whether he was a 
great character, or a mean creature. We, therefore, 
have every reason to make the best of life while it lasts. 
To Yang Chu, nothing can come after death. Fame is 
nothing. The great men of the past, " celebrate them — 
they do not know it ; reward them — they do not know 
it; their fame is no more to them than to the trunk of a 
tree or a clod of earth." 

He pities the great heroes of antiquity who, " spent 
their lives in toil and worry," and thinks certain contempt- 



26 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

ible creatures, who were pleasure-hunters all their lives, 
are to be envied, for they " never made themselves bitter 
by the thought of propriety and righteousness." Theirs 
was a happy life in spite of the evil fame that followed 
their death. For the reality of enjoyment is what no 
fame can give. 

Yung Chu was an Epicurean in his way, but a great 
deal worse than Epicurus, who taught that our pleasure 
ought to be derived from virtue and justice. His phi- 
losophy was, of course, the very reverse of what Con- 
fucius taught. The forcible manner with which Yang 
Chu stated his argumentum ad hominem has no doubt 
made an impression on his contemporaries, and his phi- 
losophy of egotism may have temporarily thrown Con- 
fucian principles into the shade; but it stands to the 
credit of the Chinese nation that Yang Chu is now al- 
most forgotten, whereas Confucius has rendered himself 
immortal among the best of his people. Yang Chu's 
great adversary was Mencius, whose good cause got the 
better of what threatened to be a danger to Confucian 
morals. 

Mencius was also opposed to another sage, who from 
our point of view did not seem to deserve it. If Yang 
Chu could be called the philosopher of egotism, the man 
who taught the very opposite, Mo Ti, also known by his 
Latinized name Micius, was the philosopher of altruism. 
He held almost Christian views, inasmuch as to him mu- 
tual love was the cure for all evils in the world. Who 
knows what turn the ethical development of the Chinese 
would have taken, had not Mencius been such an uncom- 
promising Confucianist ! 

The spread of Confucianist ideas is, of course, in 
the first instance due to this so-called Chinese classical 
literature. But much of the master's influence on his 
people is due also to the example he set by his personal 



CONFUCIUS AND THE CHINESE 27 

character, the great features of which may be derived 
from the views he expressed in the conversations form- 
ing the subject of the " Four Books." The gossip 
among those who knew him has added numerous little 
peculiarities, accounts of which have been placed on 
record in one of the chapters of the " Analects." Here 
we learn how the great man behaved in all possible re- 
lations of life, such as his mode of dressing, his food, 
his behavior in the company of friends, etc. According 
to these accounts he must have been a man full of 
caprice, even from a Chinese point of view. Whatever 
he did in public was regulated to the minutest detail by 
ceremony. Although this was not a new idea in his 
time, there can be no doubt that his authority and 
example did much to perpetuate what he considered 
desirable social practices. Dr. Legge made a short ab- 
stract from this biographical record in which he says: 

" In public, whether in the village, the temple, or the 
court, he was the man of rule and ceremony, but at home 
he was not formal. Yet, if not formal, he was partic- 
ular. In bed even he did not forget himself; he did 
not lie like a corpse, and he did not speak. He required 
his sleeping dress to be half as long again as his body. If 
he happened to be sick and the prince came to visit him, 
he had his face to the east, caused his court robes to be 
put over him, and drew his girdle across them. 

" He was nice in his diet, not disliking to have his 
rice dressed fine, nor to have his minced meat cut small. 
Anything at all * gone ' he would not touch. He must 
have his meat cut properly and to every kind its proper 
sauce ; but he was not a great eater. It was only in wine 
that he laid down no limit to himself ; but he did not allow 
himself to be confused by it. When the villagers were 
drinking together, on those who carried staves going 
out, he went out immediately after. There must always 



28 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

be ginger at the table and when eating he did not con- 
verse. Although his food might be coarse rice and poor 
soup, he would offer a little of it in sacrifice, with a 
grave and respectful air. 

" On occasion of a sudden clap of thunder or a violent 
wind, he would change countenance. He would do the 
same, and rise up, moreover, when he found himself a 
guest at a loaded board. At the sight of a person in 
mourning he would also change countenance, and if he 
happened to be in his carriage, he would bend forward 
with a respectful salutation. His general way in his 
carriage was not to turn his head round, nor talk hastily, 
nor point with his hands. He was charitable. When 
any of his friends died, if there were no relations who 
could be depended upon for the necessary offices he 
would say : ' I will bury him.' " 

We have to take into consideration that these accounts 
were written not by Confucius himself, but by an admir- 
ing set of juniors. Those many whims, which, in the 
eyes of Europeans of the twentieth century, appear to 
be weaknesses, may lessen our respect for the sage's 
genius, but they will not diminish the esteem in which we 
must hold the spotless virtue of his life. 



Ill 

BRAHMANISM * 
By A. V. Williams Jackson, Ph.D., L.H.D., LL.D. 

Professor of Indo-Iranian Languages, Columbia University 

Brahmanism, the most general term for the Aryan re- 
ligion of India, is the faith which, originating in prehis- 
toric times, was developed and taught by the Brahman 
priests, the spiritual guides of the ancient land of the In- 
dus and Ganges. There a people -is found that is dis- 
tinctly religious, for one of the most striking character- 
istics of the Oriental, patent at once to every student and 
traveler, is his intense religious fervor and religious spirit. 

This term, Brahmanism, in its broadest sense — as we 
must employ it here — includes all the religions of India 
from the earliest times of Vedism, or the religion of the 
Vedas, through Brahmanism proper, where it was reduced 
under priestly functions to a mere schematic form, with 
the changes that came up after the rise of Buddhism and 
Jainism, down to the newer form of Hinduism, and so to 
the present time, when Brahman priests still give a lead- 
ing and guiding hand in India's spiritual welfare. 

The religion of the Vedas, as representing Vedism, is 
presented to us in the sacred hymns of the Four Vedas, 
that were chanted in early times by the priests or seers. 
They were hymns glorifying and personifying the powers 
of nature; giving thanks, giving adoration, and giving 
prayer to those personified forces. It is interesting to see 
this form of nature-worship, probably in its earliest and 

1 This lecture is printed from a stenographic record during the ab- 
sence of the author on a journey to Persia and Central Asia. 

2 9 



30 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

crudest form a mere recognition of the forces revealed by 
nature, and to note that by degrees the ancient Hindus 
seem to have looked up from Nature unto Nature's God. 
Some of the hymns, to be sure, are merely anthropomor- 
phic — perhaps better, humanistic — in their way and not 
distinctly spiritual ; but others had attained a lofty height 
of true religion and true poetry. Such, for example, is 
the presentation of Agni. the Fire, the flaming mediator 
and heavenly messenger who carries the oblation from 
earth beneath to the gods above. It was thus that the 
Yedic bards, in anthropomorphic fashion, naturally prayed 
to Agni to lift their prayers, the Priest Divine of the 
sacrifice, the priest of many gifts bestowed ; and it is thus 
that we read in one of their hymns : 



" Agni, by bards of old as now 
Forever worthy to be praised, 
May he bring hither all the gods. 
Through Agni wealth may each attain, 
And weal likewise, day after day, 
Far-famed and rich in many sons." 

Similar is the spirit that breathes through many of the 
hymns to Indra. the god of storm, since by his thunder- 
bolt he rent the clouds which had been pent up by a 
monstrous dragon, who had wrapped himself around 
them and had thus held back the rain. The land was 
dying from thirst, and as the reviving water came down 
from the sky, the priests naturally lifted up their hearts 
again in hymns, chanting praises of Indra, the Divine 
One, who had freed the imprisoned clouds from their 
confinement. But these are not spiritual hymns, especially 
as Indra is described as taking large drafts of intoxicat- 
ing Soma before the battle of the elements begins. And 
yet there is real spirituality in the Vedas. as perhaps in 
some of the hymns to the Dawn, that magnificent radiance 



BRAHMANISM 31 

of glorious light in the east, which is nowhere more 
glorious than in Northern India. 

For the student of religion, however, possibly the high- 
est point is reached in the hymns addressed to Varuna, the 
personification of the sky and the divinity who, from his 
supernal realm, rules over all the world by virtue of his 
omniscience and omnipresence, if not of his omnipotence. 
But though these hymns are the most transcendental and 
the most sublime in their ethics and their religious spirit, 
Varuna never touched the Hindu heart of Vedic times as 
did Indra. And yet, since for us there is more of the 
spiritual uplift, if I may call it so, in the Varuna hymns 
than elsewhere, I cannot refrain from quoting one of 
the most characteristic of the songs in his honor, taken 
from the Rig- Veda : 

" Howe'er we, who thy people are, 
O Varuna, thou shining god, 
Thy order injure, day by day, 
Yet give thou us not unto death, 
Nor to the blow of angry (foe), 
Nor to the wrath of (foe) incensed. 
By means of song, O Varuna, 
Thy mind for mercy we release, 
As charioteer a fast-bound steed. 

('Tis Varuna) who knows the track 
Of birds that fly within the air, 
And knows the ships upon the flood ; 
Knows, too, the (god) of order firm, 
The twelve months with their progeny, 
And e'en which month is later born ; 
Knows, too, the pathway of the wind, 
The wide, the high, the mighty wind, 
And knows who sit above the wind. 

Bearing a garment all of gold, 

In jewels clothed is Varuna, 

And round about him sit his spies. 

A god whom harmers may not harm, 

Nor cheaters cheat among the folk, 



32 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

Nor any plotters plot against ; 
Who for himself 'mid (other) men 
Glory unequaled gained, and gains 
(Such glory) also 'mid ourselves. 

Far go my thoughts (to him), as go 
The eager cows that meadows seek, 
Desiring (him), the wide-eyed (god). 

And I behold the wide-eyed (god) ! 
I see his chariot on the earth ; 
My song with joy he hath received. 
Hear this my call, O Varuna, 
Be merciful to me to-day ; 
For thee, desiring help, I yearn." 

Or, to choose another illustration, one of the hymns of 
the fourth collection, the Atharva-Veda, sets forth Varu- 
na's omnipresence in words of more than usual majesty 
and dignity: 

" Yes, all this earth King Varuna possesses, 
His the remotest ends of yon broad heaven ; 
And both the seas in Varuna lie hidden, 
E'en though the smallest water-drop contains him." 

Or again : 

" Although I climbed the farthest heaven, fleeing, 
I should not there escape the monarch's power; 
From heaven his spies descending hasten hither, 
With all their thousand eyes the world surveying." 

Then there is this prayer for the forgiveness of sins : 

" If we to any dear and loved companion 
Have evil done, to brother or to neighbor, 
To our own countryman or to a stranger, 
That sin do thou, O Varuna, forgive us. 

Forgive the wrongs committed by our fathers ; 
What we ourselves have sinned, in mercy pardon ; 
My own misdeeds do thou, O god, take from me, 
And for another's sin let me not suffer." 



BRAHMANISM 33 

Of course, the number of hymns of this kind is not 
large. Of the thousands that there are in the Veda, only 
a small part approach the tone of those I have just quoted. 
Sometimes, however, we see, perhaps in the later hymns, 
the beginning of Indian speculation, which, as early as 
the first or second millennium B. C, sought to behold the 
God behind and above the gods. It was from this nas- 
cent philosophy, destined later to develop into the magnif- 
icently pantheistic Upanishads, that there came one of 
the great cosmogonic hymns of the Rig- Veda, of which 
I have prepared the following version : 



" Nor aught nor aught existed ; yon bright sky 
Was not, nor heaven's broad woof ourstretched above. 
What covered all ? What sheltered ? What concealed ? 
Was it the waters' fathomless abyss ? 
There was no death, hence was there naught immortal ; 
There was no light of night, no light of day ; 
Only the One breathed breathless in itself; 
Other than it hath nothing since e'er been. 
Darkness there was, and all at first was veiled 
In gloom profound, an ocean without light ; 
The germ, that still lay covered in the husk 
Burst forth, one nature from the fervent heat. 
Then first came Love upon it, the new germ 
Of mind, as poets in their hearts discerned, 
Pondering this bond between created things 
And uncreated. Came this ray from earth, 
Piercing and all-pervading, or from heaven ? 
Then seeds were sown, and Power and Will above. 
Who knows the secret ? Who proclaimed it here, 
Whence, whence this manifold creation sprang ? 
He from whom all this great creation came, 
Whether his will created or was mute, 
The most high Seer that is in highest heaven, 
He knows it — or perchance e'en He knows not." 



More and more there was developed this concept of the 
All-creative, of whom the whole world is but a part. One 



34 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

can see it throughout the second stage of Brahmanism 
proper, despite its evolution of a ritual and ceremonial 
which became so great that it strangled religious faith. 
There was almost a pall of darkness through priestcraft 
in the land, yet out of the element came speculation again 
in another form, partly in Buddhism and partly in Jainism. 
These, however, were not Brahmanism or Hinduism ; for 
Brahmanism went on unchanged, despite this protestant 
movement that ran parallel with the steady continuation 
of Brahmanism, Hinduism, and Vedism all along the line, 
disappearing, indeed, for a time, only to emerge with 
the pantheistic concept that there is nothing but soul, that 
the individual soul is simply a part of the All-soul and 
utimately returns again to the Infinite, of which it is, so 
to speak, merely an emanation. 

This is the point of view that we find illustrated so well 
in one of the Upanishads, which tells how a teacher, who 
sought to impart to his pupil, by way of practical parable, 
this all-pervading idea of the divine spirit of which man 
is a part, gave the youth this command : " Place this 
salt in water, and then wait on me in the morning." The 
pupil did as he was directed, whereupon his teacher said : 
" Bring me the salt which you placed in the water last 
night." The pupil, looking for it, found it not, because 
it was dissolved. Then the teacher said. " Taste it from 
the surface of the water. How is it ? " " Salt," said the 
pupil. " Taste it from the middle." " Salt," was the 
reply. " Taste it from the bottom. How is it? " " Salt," 
answered the pupil. Then the teacher said : " Throw it 
away and wait on me," and the pupil did so. Thereupon, 
by pointing out that the salt exists forever, even though 
the eye may not perceive it, the teacher showed what 
the lesson really meant. " Here also in this body, though 
perhaps you may not perceive it, is the True, the Absolute, 
the Essence of Being. There it is, and that Subtle Es- 



BRAHMANISM 35 

sence is all that truly exists. That is the true. That is 
the Self. That art thou ! " 

If we seek to trace the development of this notion 
through later times, we will find it, for example, in the 
story of Nachiketas, who speaks to his father, after the 
latter has offered sacrifice and, in his search for life eter- 
nal, given away all that he has, even to himself, asking: 
" To whom, then, wilt thou give me ? " The father, per- 
haps unsettled and angry, says, " I give thee to Yama," 
which means " I give thee to hell." The boy then goes to 
Yama, or Death ; but since Death was away at the moment 
and so was not at home to receive him with respect when 
he came, the dread deity asked pardon because his guest 
was not properly welcomed. Thereupon Nachiketas 
asked secrets from Yama, and they discoursed at length 
on the question of the life hereafter. In this legend, as 
in so much of India's speculative thought, the concept of 
the Atman, or World-soul, comes clearly to the fore. 
The Atman is not born ; it does not die. It sprang from 
nothing; nothing sprang from it. It is the Unborn, the 
Constant, the Everlasting, the Ancient. It is not killed, 
though the body is killed. As Yama says in his dis- 
course : a If the killer thinks that he kills, if the killed 
thinks that he is killed, they do not understand; for this 
one does not kill, nor is that one killed. This creature 
Self, smaller than the small and greater than the great, is 
in secret hidden." And yet, " a man who is free from all 
desires sees the majesty of Self by the grace of the 
Divine One." 

Take it up in the lines of Emerson on Brahma, which 
brings together better than almost anything else the latter 
idea of the religious doctrines of Brahmanism : 

" If the red slayer think he slays, 
Or if the slain think he is slain, 
They know not well the subtle ways 
I keep, and pass, and turn again. 



36 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

Far or forgot to me is near, 
Shadow or sunlight are the same, 
The vanished gods to me appear, 
And one to me are shame and fame. 

They reckon ill who leave me out ; 
When me they fly, I am the wings ; 
I am the doubter and the doubt, 
And I the hymn the Brahmin sings. 

The strong gods pine for my abode, 
And pine in vain the sacred Seven ; 
But thou, meek lover of the good ! 
Find me, and turn thy back on heaven." 

This is true, in like manner, in the later developments 
of Hinduism through Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva — 
Brahma, the divine spirit still ; Vishnu, the Preserver ; and 
Shiva, the Destroyer — each of whom is believed by his 
special worshipers to permeate the universe; though in 
the later period there is a marked tendency toward mono- 
theism, especially in recent times. Some of the movements 
in India undoubtedly show Influence from the West, but 
throughout all Hindu thought runs the doctrine of Karma, 
or the belief that the deeds done in one incarnation condi- 
tion the next earthly existence. And there is much logic 
in this idea of action and its effect, or, in other words, of 
cause and effect, which are so closely associated in the 
Hindu doctrine of reincarnation, or the return of the 
individual soul into the world from the realms beyond. 
But with all this there came a change over the Indian 
spirit ; for the tendency was toward quietism rather than 
toward active life and the interests that had marked the 
earlier period. In the heated plains of the Ganges region, 
with their effect on the Oriental spirit of those who came 
into Hindustan from the north, the tone of the invading 
Aryans is generally thought to have been relaxed and to 
have become degenerate. Whatever may have been the 



BRAHMANISM 37 

ultimate source of this concept of rebirth and the eager 
desire of Hindu thought to " throw away this existence 
and be a part of the Eternal," the same idea recurs in 
Buddhism, where it is expressed as a longing " to be 
free from the fetters that bind us " — a desire again most 
closely associated with the doctrine of Karma and its 
effects. 

Perfectly logical, I insist again, is this belief as an ex- 
planation of pain and suffering and all earthly evil, since 
these woes are not due to chance, but to the sins of the 
past, which emerge again and again and again. Hence 
arises the conviction that quietism is best — a conviction 
which finds striking expression in the ideal life of the 
Hindu, who must pass through four stages in the course 
of his life: first, the constant study of the Vedas for 
twelve years, or twenty-four years, or, if necessary, for 
forty-eight years, until all the religious literature has been 
learned; then the stage of a householder, involving the 
important duty of begetting a son to carry on the ritual ; 
next dwelling in the forest as a pious ascetic ; and finally 
absolute quietism as a mendicant, not desiring life, not 
desiring death, but simply and solely awaiting his end. 

These are typical elements, and they are the most 
characteristic features of the religious thought of the 
Hindu — metaphysical, spiritual, and deep in thought, yet 
with more of thought than of action, in accord with the 
temperamental quietism of India. But it always seems to 
me, as a student of those early religions, when I finish 
looking them over, that all who search into them must 
ever come back anew to the teachings of the Gentle 
Nazarene. 



IV 



BUDDHISM: THE PERSONALITY AND 
INFLUENCE OF ITS FOUNDER 

By Justin Hartley Moore, A.M., Ph.D. 

Author of the " Sayings of Buddha," a translation of the Iti-Vuttaka 

More than once the traveler in the Orient has entered 
some lofty temple in Japan, or some immense conical hall 
in Burma, or perhaps even into some gilded palace in 
Thibet, and has seen in them all a statue of the same 
human form. And in looking at this placid effigy he ex- 
periences at the same time two distinct impressions. The 
statue at first always seems etenally young and new, — 
the calm, benevolent eyes seem to be gazing far away, 
with perfect understanding, into the cloudy future; and 
yet the inscrutable smile, the air of aloofness from 
humanity's joys and sorrows, the dreamlike trance of the 
statue's motionless face, make this sculptured being seem 
older than the ages. 

And as are these likenesses of Gautama, the Buddha, 
so in truth is the religion which he founded. For 
Buddhism is a new religion in the sense that it came to the 
attention of Europe only two generations ago, and it is 
old in that Gautama lived and taught more than a 
millennium before Mohammed and five centuries before 
Jesus Christ. 

The life of Gautama may be recounted in a few words. 
In the north central portion of Hindustan, in the kingdom 
of Kapilavastu, presumably in the year 560 B. C., there 
was born into the king's family a male child who bore 
the various names of Gautama, Siddartha and Sakyamuni. 

38 



BUDDHISM 39 

As a boy he was serious and well behaved ; his head was 
not turned by the possession of great wealth, neither was 
his disposition spoiled by the constant presence of flatter- 
ing courtiers. At an early age he showed a strong inclina- 
tion toward revery and reflection, and passed much time 
in meditation upon the deeper problems of life. His 
father, the king, fearing that such meditation might unfit 
the boy for his princely duties, arranged that he should 
constantly be surrounded by other youths of high family, 
so that Gautama might vie with them in noble sports and 
pastimes. The prince surpassed them all in grace, and 
power, and manly beauty. 

His marriage to Yasodhara resulted in the birth of a 
little son. To the infant was given the name Rahula, a 
bond. By this name the father symbolized the strength- 
ening of his attachment to worldly life, and the increased 
power of his earthly ties. 

For several years Gautama lived in perfect harmony 
with his wife Yasodhara, in perfect contentment, until 
one day at the age of thirty he chanced for the first time 
to take a drive beyond the walls of the palace park. By 
the roadside he saw an old man, a sight never seen before. 
The prince went home in deep thought. On a day after, 
his charioteer again drove him beyond the palace gates, 
and this time he saw a second unaccustomed sight, 
namely, a diseased person. Twice again he drove forth, 
and beheld a dead body, and, lastly, a red-robed priest. 

Gautama's wavering resolution now became crystal- 
lized : the three scourges of mankind, old age, disease and 
death, weighed down his soul by their hideous certainty, 
and the only remedy that beckoned to him was the soli- 
tary life of a wandering priest. So in the darkness of 
night he bade silent farewell to his sleeping wife and child 
and turned his back upon all that had been dear to him. 

For six years he wandered in the forests and by the 



40 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

desert places. He fasted. He tormented his body with 
all manner of privations and austerities. Such was the 
traditional existence of monks, such was the daily practice 
of every aspirant to holiness, so why should he live any 
different than they? So great became his self-inflicted 
tortures, and so keen his suffering, that many disciples 
flocked about him in admiration. " Surely," they 
thought, " surely such a man is more than human. 
Verily, his merit is boundless." 

Yet one day Gautama saw a vision, in which a great 
truth flashed upon him, the truth that human suffering 
when self-inflicted was as vain, as useless as was human 
enjoyment. The truth that the soul can not be purified 
by mistreating the body. The truth that when the flesh 
is groaning with pain, the spirit is not capable of the 
proper kind of exaltation. And Gautama ceased his fast- 
ing and went forth and preached this new doctrine, which 
at first made him countless enemies. 

Legend says that Mara, the devil, came and tempted 
him to renounce the mission of teacher which he had 
chosen, offering him precious gifts and increased worldly 
dominion. But Gautama did not cede. 

A little later he came to a tree and sat down. And 
here a spell of meditation came upon him, — meditation 
more profound than any before in his life. After seven 
days he arose again. In his mind had come the most 
fundamental of all his later tenets that were to be pro- 
claimed to the world of men. Ever afterward Gautama 
was called the Buddha, the Enlightened One, and the tree 
under which he sat was called the Bodhi tree, or Tree of 
Enlightenment, a tree which, by more than three hundred 
million Buddhists, to-day is looked upon as sacred, and 
which is regarded with the holy reverence that we give to 
the Cross at Calvary. 

What was the doctrine which Buddha discovered there ? 



BUDDHISM 41 

The Pratitya-samutpada, as it is called, or the Chain of 
Causation. 

The discussion of this we shall postpone for a brief 
space until we have narrated the rest of his life. 

Little by little the number of his followers increased; 
before long a rich land-owner made a gift of a park in 
whose cool shade a rest-house was built where men could 
come and listen to his teachings ; and this example was 
rapidly followed by others. Rich Brahmans gave liberally 
of their means, and at length a chain of these monasteries 
was stretched across India, a chain to which link after 
link was added in succeeding years until it measured the 
largest continent. 

Himself a noble in birth as well as in soul, Buddha was 
received sympathetically within the highest homes, — and 
yet he appealed also to the poor and lowly because he 
taught that all mankind is of one stuff, and in this doctrine 
the teacher was far as the poles asunder from the paralyz- 
ing spirit of caste which to this very day grips India in 
its iron clutch. The more ignorant of his followers he 
taught by means of parables and fairy stories, — tales of 
mythical animals and of folk-lore which were current 
long before his day, and which he refashioned to suit his 
moral purposes. These stories exist to-day, and are ex- 
tremely interesting. In them we find more than one of 
the plots from which Aesop and La Fontaine got inspira- 
tion. They are called the Jatakas, or Birth Stories, and 
purport to be the adventures of Gautama in his countless 
past existences upon earth as man, or bird, or as beast. 
Others of his following, the living people of the time, 
were also identified with the various heroes of the same 
stories. 

Buddha's other teachings, his more abstruse philo- 
sophical or ethical doctrines, addressed to the better 
educated of his hearers, and handed over to the elite for 



42 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

safekeeping and promulgation, were embodied in other 
works of the sacred Buddhist canon, some of which may 
have actually been written down during his own life. 
The Ti-pitaka, or Three Baskets, as they are called, con- 
sist of many hundred octavo pages composing the Vinaya 
Pitaka, the Sutta Pitaka and the Abhidhamma Pitaka. 
Of these the first deals with the organization and reg- 
ulation of the priesthood, and the third, probably much 
later in date, with the higher problems of metaphysics. 
But to the general student the second great division, the 
Sutta Pitaka, is of by far the greatest interest. 

The Sutta Pitaka is divided into five nikayas, and of 
these the fifth is in its turn composed of fifteen separate 
compilations of wide scope and wide variation of subject 
matter. We may cite merely a few of the titles. The 
Jatakas, or Birth Stories, in six goodly volumes, have 
already been mentioned. Of almost equal interest are 
the Udana, or Utterances of Buddha, — the Iti-vuttaka, 
or Sayings of Buddha, — the Theragatha, or Sayings of 
the Deacons, — the Buddhavamsa, a biography of Gau- 
tama, — the Petavatthu, a collection of legends of the dead. 

Shorter than any of these in size, but far superior in 
beauty of treatment, is the Dhammapada, that gem of 
Buddhistic literature, sparkling in its setting of faultless 
style. So perfect in a way are some of the stanzas of 
this little book, that I am tempted to cite two or three of 
them to you. 

" The man who is free from credulity but knows the uncreated, who 
has cut all ties, removed all temptations, he is the greatest of men." 

" If a fool be associated with a wise man, even all his life, he will per- 
ceive the truth as little as a spoon perceives the taste of soup." 

" What is the use of plaited hair, O Fool ? What is the use of the 
raiment of goat skins ? The outside they make clean, but within there 
is ravening." 



BUDDHISM 43 

" Let us live happily, then, not hating those who hate us. Among 
men who hate us, let us dwell free from hatred. And who always greets 
and constantly reveres the aged, four things will increase to him, — 
animal life, beauty, happiness and power." 

Such were Buddha's teachings during the course of 
his long life. He lived a life of purity. He mingled 
with men. He was broad in sympathy, in kindness, in 
lack of prejudice. He did not disdain to offer words of 
advice and encouragement to scoundrel or to courtesan. 
He was, in the good meaning of the expression, a thor- 
ough man of the world. He partook of all innocent di- 
versions and festivites. He met his death, toward the age 
of eighty, so the records say, from eating pork. 

He never claimed to have been inspired by any divine 
being ; he did not look upon himself as in any way divine ; 
he never believed or taught that there was any such thing 
as God, the Creator and Preserver. He certainly did not 
intend that after his death his followers should worship 
hfe name. He never claimed to stand on any higher 
religious pedestal than any other men. He breathes no 
revenge for disobedience, no forgiveness for the penitent. 
No higher power ever whispered into his ear the secrets 
of eternity nor pointed out the hidden place of truth. 
Buddha never claimed to be a messenger from any Power 
who dwells above this world. And if he spoke as one 
having authority, it was an authority of experience merely, 
and in no wise due either to inspiration or personal 
divinity. 

How is it, then, that from his philosophy there grew 
a religion? What is it that makes his name a living 
force to millions upon millions of men to-day? What 
is it that has carried this one feeble human voice echoing 
down the long halls of Time? What are the responsive 
chords in the Oriental nature which he touched and set 
vibrating? Here are questions easy to ask, but hard to 



44 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

answer. We may say, that it was because of his reforms. 
But there have been many greater reformers. Or we 
may say his renown is due to his character although many 
men before and since have had characters as high. As 
an explanation probably more truthful than either of 
these, we are led to suppose that all of Buddha's influence 
upon men was due to the power of his love and his 
simplicity. He brought spirituality down out of the 
clouds. The useless patter of chants to tinsel detities, — 
the vain jabberings of sacrificial litanies he washed away. 
His own moral example was as a light shining upon the 
humblest, his precepts of righteousness wean the sinner 
from his crime, — his winning nature has left its imprint 
upon the ages. And in this life which, as the Buddhists 
believe, is naught but a single existence in a long series 
leading to the end of everything, Nirvana, the utter ex- 
tinction of all things for evermore, Buddha stands as 
the guide who has fought the fight, who has himself risen 
higher and higher and nobler and nobler during his past 
lives. He is, as it were, humanity's elder brother, guid- 
ing its feeble steps in the way they should go. In all of 
History's long scroll there are few more striking examples 
of the power of a present personality. 

Of the practical morality of Buddhism there is no 
especial need to speak ; that Gautama would in his teach- 
ings show the gentleman's inborn repugnance to all that 
was low, degrading, dishonest, or impure in any way, was 
to be expected. A sincere Buddhist to-day is in his daily 
life just as upright, just as worthy, just as kind and con- 
siderate, just as good a man as any sincere Christian. 

Sin is in its consequences merciless and dread. Each 
offender is responsible to himself for his misdeeds and to 
himself alone. For the Buddhists believe that no one 
can wash away our sin, atonement for it can never be 
avoided; without reparation no evil deed can ever be 



BUDDHISM 45 

excused. The salvation of man is not in faith but in 
fatality, not by words only but by works also. No 
Buddhist believes for a moment that a good death can 
hallow an evil life, and any Buddhist to-day would con- 
sider the belief that a reprobate could by a deathbed 
repentance enter into paradise on an equality with those 
people whose life had been pure, to be a belief most 
laughably absurd. 

To turn back now to the greatest of Buddha's teachings, 
the doctrine which he forged out mentally during his 
seven days rapt seance under the Bodhi tree, I mean the 
Pratitya-samutpada, as it is called, or the Chain of Causa- 
tion. 

Instead of speaking of the twelve links, or nidanas, of 
this metaphysical chain in their usual sequence, I am 
going to give them in their inverted order for the sake of 
ease and clearness of comprehension. 

"(a) Existence is miserable; the round of Birth, Old 
Age and Death bring inevitably in their train, desolation, 
grief, affliction, suffering and despair. 

(b) But all this anguish results from Birth. 

(c) Birth is due to our parents' previous life, — to 
previous existence. 

(d) All existence, mental and physical, is due to 
nourishment as well of the body as of the mind, — to 
upadana, to the voluntary attitude of receptivity. 

(e) This underlying cause of existence is in its turn 
due to Desire, trsna. 

(f) Desire is awakened by sensations, sight, smell, 
touch, hearing, taste, by mental imagery. 

(g) All sensation results from Contact, sparga. 

(h) Contact implies the presence of the six bodily 
organs, — the eye, the nose, the ear, the tongue, the skin, 
the mind. 

(i) These organs can only be possessed by an individ- 



46 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

ual, whose individuality consists in namarupa, or name 
and form, nama being, roughly speaking, his mental con- 
stitution, rupa his physical structure. 

(j) Without these concomitant and interdependent 
phenomena of body and mentality, consciousness is im- 
possible. 

(k) Consciousness comes from the Samskara, the form- 
ations. This term has been compared (by Oltramare, 
La Formule Bouddhique, Geneva, 1909, p. 16) to the 
masses of apperception of the Hebartian psychology. 

(1) These samskaras, in turn, rest upon ignorance. 

This is his chain ; by this series of arguments, many of 
which were by no means original with him, Buddha traced 
all suffering back to ignorance. It is a philosophical 
scheme not of universal but only of human application. 

The confession of faith of Buddhism is this : 

Of those things (conditions) which spring from a cause 
The Cause hath been told by the Consummate One 
And their suppression likewise 
The great teacher hath revealed. 

Connected with the Chain of Causation comes the 
doctrine of the four verities, namely, Suffering, the origin 
of suffering, the suppression of suffering and the way 
leading to this suppression. 

The way to the suppression of suffering is called the 
the Eightfold Path, namely, right faith, right judgment, 
right language, right purpose, right action, right hinking, 
right meditation, right means of livelihood. 

But Buddha's fame does not rest upon his philosophy. 
In fact (as Pischel, Leben des Buddhas, 1908, p. 10, 
states) all of theoretical Buddhism has been borrowed 
from the Samkhya philosophy. There are many incon- 
sistencies in his philosophy. When occasionally he was 
pressed by some casuist for a more acute anwer to some 



BUDDHISM 47 

searching question of dialectics or of metaphysical soph- 
istry, he refused to reply, saying that such subject did not 
tend toward edification. 

It has indeed been claimed that Gautama took up with 
philosophy purely with ulterior motives, that he founded 
a philosophical school because that was the only way to 
gain high standing with the people. In India philosophy 
has ever been held in honor. 

His system has been called (by Waddell, quoted by 
Kern, Buddhism, Leyden, 18, p. 50) an " idealistic 
Nihilism; an idealism which like that of Berkeley holds 
that the ' fruitful source of all error was the unfounded 
belief in the reality and existence of the external world/ 
and that man can perceive nothing but his feelings, and 
is the cause to himself of these. That all known or 
knowable objects are relative to a conscious subject, and 
thereby a product of the ego, for the ego, in the ego. 

" But unlike Berkeley's Idealism, this recognition of 
the relativity and limitations of knowledge and the con- 
sequent disappearance of the world as a reality, led 
directly to Nihilism, by seeming to exclude the knowledge, 
and by implication the existence not only of a creator but 
of an absolute Being." 

Buddha's reforms, then, were the abolition of sacrifice, 
the inculcation of moderation instead of asceticism, and 
perhaps, in a lesser way, the combating of Caste. But 
greatest of all his reforms was the powerful emphasis he 
laid upon the doctrine of Nirvana. 

Nirvana (in Pali, nibbana) is the goal, the highest aim 
of every Buddhist. The word is a figurative one ; nik or 
nir is a prefix meaning " out of, way from," va, means 
" to breathe," and na in the Sanskrit and Pali languages 
is the sign of the past participle. So the word literally 
means " that which has been breathed out," hence 
"quenching, extinction." This etymological interpreta- 



48 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

tion is borne out by illustrations in the Buddhist script- 
ures; it is frequently compared to the blowing out of a 
flame. Our life is the flame, — when we die, we shall, if 
our life has been perfect, go immediately into this happy, 
blissful state of nothingness and annihilation. But if we 
are not perfect, we must first go through other existences. 
There is a whole series of Heavens, each one of them 
adapted to the particular grade of virtue of those who are 
on their way toward the attainment of the final Nirvana, 
and for the wicked there are twenty-four different hells, 
where they may be born again in the form of dogs, or 
toads, or serpents. 

We find many changes in this religion as time goes 
on, — countless changes. One of the Japanese sects, for 
example, worships a god, Amida, the creator, and in this 
same sect the Buddha has somewhat the role of a prophet. 
So that when a person says such and such a doctrine is 
Buddhistic, the foreign critic should always be chary 
of pronouncing judgment before first having carefully 
determined whether such particular doctrine is of the 
Mahayana, the later, or Northern School, or whether it is 
of the Hinayana, the earlier, or Southern School, and then 
in either case, whether the particular doctrine is in the 
canon itself or in some writings of the commentators. 

For the word Buddhism, as often loosely employed, is 
so broad as to be well-nigh meaningless. 

Among some later generations of Gautama's followers, 
the hydra-head of fetichism is lifted up. Weird supersti- 
tions and bizarre mythology are rife throughout the land. 
Hero worship creeps in. Relics of the holy Gautama are 
treasured up. In Ceylon at this very day, within the 
sacred inner precincts of the temple, lies hidden from pro- 
fane eyes the most previous of their religious treasures, — 
Buddha's tooth, — an ivory fang the length of one's fin- 
ger. Elsewhere, too, we find the same pitiful craving of 



BUDDHISM 49 

humanity for something holy that the eye can see and 
the hands touch. 

And when the waves of his passing had in time widened 
into ripples, we find the distant countries which receive 
his influence submit his tenets to many changes. Com- 
mentation and translation give rise to divergence of 
schools. With changes in dogma come also changes in 
sacraments. The alterations in ritual mark the coming 
in of liturgy, — that barnacle of time upon religion's 
rocky fastness. 

Toward the fourth century A. D. is found the beginning 
of a very wide and profound division in the ranks of 
Buddha's followers. Or perhaps we might rather say an 
outgrowth, since the new school of the North, the 
Mahayana, includes for the most part, among its 
adherents, tribes and nations to whom the older school, the 
Hinayana, or Southern branch, did not appeal. 

The Mahayana, although keeping intact the original 
scriptures, has in many respects amplified and added to 
their doctrines to a most surprising extent. There is no 
formal discrepancy between the two great branches with 
regard to the moral code ; but we may state that with the 
Northern Buddhists moral activity comes more into the 
foreground. Not the Arahat, the perfect Buddha, he who 
has shaken off all human feeling, — but the generous, self- 
sacrificing Buddhisattva, the Buddha in his past existences 
when he had more of human frailty, is the ideal of the 
Mahayanists, and this attractive side of the creed has 
perhaps more than anything else contributed to their wide 
conquests, whereas Southern Buddhism has not been able 
to make converts except where the ground had first been 
prepared by Hinduism or Mahayanism. 

The Mahayana, too, has laid great stress upon devo- 
tion, or bhakti; the ritual from being merely commemora- 
tive has become worshipful. 



50 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

In Thibet a surprising emphasis is given to the karma 
doctrine, namely, the heaping up of merit, just as grain 
would be stored up in a barn. This is evidenced by that 
popular Thibetan institution of the prayer-wheel, the well 
known device turned by water, wind, or the pious finger 
of the passerby ; every revolution of the prayer is believed 
to bring its due store of merit. 

These wide, these fundamental changes in the earlier 
beliefs, may well give us pause. And observing the 
astonishing way in which some of the Northern sects 
have varied from Buddha's teachings while yet preserving 
his name, we are led to speculate as to what a practical 
religion would be without the race spirit, and when we 
see that some of the Japanese sects have to the atheism 
of Buddha added a God, Amida, we recall irresistibly that 
sardonic saying : " If there were no God, mankind would 
have to make one." 

To all of these changes, Buddhism lent itself with 
peculiar ease ; for just as kindness had been the keynote 
of Buddha's character, so compassion and love became 
the watchward and countersign of his followers. The 
kindliness of his own life foreshadowed the prevailing 
spirit of his church. The fervent followers were urged 
to ignore whatever in another's religious belief might 
appear to them unseemly, to concentrate their attention 
upon their own welfare of soul; and furthermore upon 
taat hardest of all acquisitions of a zealot, toleration, 
Buddhism has laid the greatest emphasis. 

The progress of this religion among foreign peoples 
was strikingly easy. The morality of the Buddhist clergy 
seems always to have been high. They practiced what 
they preached. Then, too, the church never attracted 
unfavorable attention by any political activities. Bud- 
dhists have always sought to keep the church and state 
entirely apart (with the possible exception of Thibet). 



BUDDHISM 51 

In Burma, for example, if a priest should express any 
opinion on war, or law, or finance, this act would at once 
mark him as a backslider and renegade, and he would 
forthwith be driven from the order by the mere force 
of public opinion. 

As a result, religious wars have never soiled the fair 
standards of this faith; persecution or oppression has 
never marred its course; the sword has never blazed the 
path of its continental progress. Elevation of soul has 
never been upheld by putting thought in chains, nor has 
fanaticism ever dimmed the sweet light of reason. Inde- 
pendence of view-point has always been esteemed, and 
free-thinking held in honor. 

Yet this passivity of attitude has from a practical stand- 
point been a source of weakness. When in 1857 the 
British invaded Burma, in all that immense country not a 
single Buddhist priest did the slightest thing to encourage 
the Burmese householders to a patriotic stand for their 
country. Every soldier that struck a blow in defense of 
his home, did so with a vivid realization that he would 
suffer moral punishment. They all believed that killing 
in war is just as much murder as is killing in any other 
way. In either case the sin must meet with the same 
retribution. No people in history have been firmer 
believers in the teaching: "Take ye no thought for the 
things of this world." Southern Buddhism shows an 
astonishing lack of militancy. The strictness of their 
adherence to this particular teaching of the Master may 
be due to their superior piety of soul, but may quite 
possibly have been brought about by the enervating 
influence of a tropical climate. 

Some of Buddha's physical doctrines are of interest, 
especially from the fact that the universe outside of man- 
kind occupied a very minor role in his philosophy ; one or 
two of his physical doctrines are to a certain extent par- 



52 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

alleled in the Greek philosophies, and have likewise a like- 
ness to some of the latest teachings of some modern 
thinkers. 

Everything is in constant motion, he says, — nowhere 
is there stillness. Sarvam anetyam, — all is in eternal 
change. There is no such thing as a whole, but only an 
infinite number of parts. 

Then, too, the doctrine of karma has certain analogies 
with the modern doctrines of heredity and evolution. 

In the Dhamma sanghani, a treatise later in date than 
the canon, we find startling similarities with modern 
psychology. But the incipient seeds of science bore no 
fruit; for if the universe is a hopeless, dark and dismal 
dwelling, why should man seek to learn its ordering? 

To pronounce judgment on anything at all is far from 
easy, to give fair treatment to a strange religion is ex- 
tremely hard. The light by which we behold cannot be 
lifted from our eyelids, — to see we must have light ; but 
this very light may make the outer shadows darker still. 
Insidious prejudice is apt to creep in with stealthy foot. 

We should be apt to say, for example, off-hand, that 
to a Buddhist — a Southern Buddhist — prayer would be 
impossible. For what, in sooth, is more glaringly incon- 
sistent than to commune with a non-existent deity? And 
yet, and yet ! A traveler in Burma tells us that he saw 
one day a woman who had lost her child. And after the 
first wild, incredulous ecstasy of grief she went before a 
Buddhist temple and knelt in prayer. To whom could her 
prayers have been addressed? Not to Buddha, for he is 
absorbed into utter nothingness, into Nirvana. Was she 
not praying to the unknown God ? 

From the Christian standpoint, Buddhism seems nega- 
tive, pessimistic and selfish. We walk alone. Every- 
one is struggling for himself. Every man is his own 
savior. There is no mysterious presence with us to 



BUDDHISM 53 

cheer, to guide, to counsel, to console. There is no im- 
manence, no indwelling of the Spirit. Hope is over- 
balanced by memory. The past drags down the future to 
its level. No one can lift the moral burden from our 
shoulders. We must, each one of us, pull ourselves out 
of the slough of despond — alone. 

There is too much of the individual, too little of the 
universal ; too much concern with the welfare of one's 
own soul, too little concern with the wellbeing of society. 
There is too much marking up of moral credits, too little 
laying down of civic corner-stones. Too negative, too 
passive. It is hard to imagine how a Buddhist could 
have much enthusiasm for such a creed. 

Then take the Buddhist attitude toward the present 
world, — full of suffering, they say, and of misery and 
woe. With what deliberation they gaze upon the dark 
side of things! Is it not of significance that the prince 
of modern pessimists, Schopenhauer, should have been 
largely inspired by the Buddhist doctrines ? 

Then again, the karma doctrine, although it may, to 
some minds, contain a certain outward temptingness of 
logic, really does seem on examination to be merely a 
dignified kind of moralistic bookkeeping. Misdeeds are 
debited, good deeds are credited. To get your reward you 
must present a satisfactory balance, and then the final 
trump will open the portals for you into Nirvana, and your 
bookkeeping is done. 

In other words, the Buddhists are taught to do right 
for their own personal advantage, not because it is right. 
The Buddhists would give overwhelming acceptance to 
that cynical phrase : " Honesty is the best policy." 
With the Buddhists sin is a calamity, a misfortune to be 
avoided, — not a pollution. Would not any one rather 
have a favor done him because the other person loved 
him, rather than because that other person was thinking 



54 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

of the effect such act would have on his own soul? Is 

not morality noblest when its motives are noble? 

And the end, they say, is yawning nothingness. No 
purified communion of souls, no everlasting converse of 
the spirits of the blessed. Thus, how can a Buddhist go 
to his end with the clear eye of anticipation, with smiling 
lips and uplifted face full of a radiant hope, with an 
unfaltering trust in Something wider in mercy than the 
heavens, whose face is more glorious than the sun? 

The foregoing may serve as the merest outline of 
Buddhist doctrines. If space would only permit, we 
might discuss many other phases of this extensive topic. 
To narrate the course of this religion, into Thibet, 
China and Japan, would be highly profitable, as perhaps 
also would be a short account of Buddhistic art and folk- 
lore, and the part which the religion now plays in count- 
less homes in many nations. And perhaps also the atti- 
tude of fervent Buddhists toward our own religion would 
be worth discussion. But this cannot be done. 

Yet even the briefest treatment is enough to indicate 
Buddha's nobility of soul and the purity of his life and of 
his aims. He occupies a worthy place with the religious 
teachers of nations other than our own. 

And as our attention is turned to a closer examination 
of the religious beliefs of other ages, we shall find, I 
think, that what at first appeared far apart and widely 
different will be seen to have some fundamental likeness. 
It is as if we were standing near a high mountain, which 
as we look up, looms so huge and vast that it shuts off 
everything behind; but as we move further away, other 
peaks come into our vision, forming an endless mountain 
range whose serried Heights stretch away infinitely into 
the past. And one mountain joins into another as far 
as the eye can reach, for they are all based upon the 
rock of aspiration, and of every one we see the summit 
pointing upward. 



V 



ZOROASTER AND THE AVESTA: THE 
RELIGION OF ANCIENT PERSIA 

By Arthur Frank Joseph Remy, A.M., Ph.D. 

Assistant Professor of Germanic Philology, Columbia University 

Ancient Persia, one of the great monarchies of the 
East, ruler at one time of Egypt and Palestine and the 
rival of Greece and Rome for the domination of the 
Western world. Its religion must be of the greatest 
interest to all students of human civilization, especially 
for Bible students, in view of the fact that during the 
Babylonian captivity the people of Israel were under 
Persian sway and brought into direct contact with this 
great religious system. The student of comparative re- 
ligion in particular cannot fail to be impressed by the 
numerous and striking parallels between the great re- 
ligion of Iran, on the one hand, and Judaism and Christi- 
anity on the other. 

I may remark incidentally that one of the most inter- 
esting questions is: What was the influence of Judaism 
upon Parsism? or, vice versa: what was the influence of 
Parsism upon Judaism and, therefore, upon Christian- 
ity? 

Various names, according to certain prominent feat- 
ures, are given to the religion of ancient Iran. It is 
sometimes called Mazdaism, from the name of the su- 
preme deity, Mazda; Magism, from the name of a 
Median tribe and priestly family ; " fire worship," from 
the sacred fire regarded as a symbol of purity; Dualism, 
from the prominence given to the struggle between good 

55 



56 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

and evil, and Parsism, the name which is most in use at 
present, derived from Parsi, an inhabitant of Pars, the 
Persian province. But the best designation, undoubt- 
edly, is Zoroastrianism, from the name of its founder, — 
— just as we speak of Buddhism and Mohammedanism, 
from the names of their respective founders, and of 
Christianity, from the name of our own divine founder. 

This brings me at the outset to the question of the 
personality of Zoroaster. It is a name long identified 
in the Western world with occult wisdom and magic. 
The conception of the great Iranian sage as a magician 
and sorcerer, so prominent in books of the black art, 
as, for instance, in those figuring in the Faust-legend, 
has been current ever since the days of classical anti- 
quity. To the Greeks and Romans Zoroaster was the 
arch-representative of the Magi, and the most fantastic 
tales were related concerning his demoniac powers. 

No wonder that later ages have doubted his very 
existence and regarded him as purely mythical. To-day, 
however, we know that Zoroaster was a real, historical 
personage, no more mythical than Buddha. The Iranian 
sources have been studied, and from them as well as 
from the tradition still living among the modern Parsees 
we have learned much about the personlity of the great 
prophet of ancient Iran. 

As far as the name Zoroaster is concerned, it comes 
from the Latin through the Greek form Zwpodarpriq. 
The Avestan form is Zarathushtra, the modern Per- 
sian Zardusht. The Greek form, translated as " Golden 
Star," suggests a very beautiful name. As a matter of 
fact, in the Avestan form Zarathushtra the second ele- 
ment, ushtra, certainly means " camel." What the first 
part means is not clear, but the name was evidently quite 
prosaic and commonplace. 

As for the prophet's date, extravagant claims of anti- 



ZOROASTER AND THE AVESTA 57 

quity have been made. Some dating him as early 
as 6,000 B.C. ; others making him a contemporary of 
Ninus and Semiramis. But these claims are wholly un- 
founded. Parsee tradition places him only three hun- 
dred years earlier than Alexander the Great, and this 
seems to be nearly right. According to the investigation 
of the best Iranian scholars, the latter half of the seventh 
and the beginning of the sixth century before Christ is 
the era when the great prophet flourished. 

As for his native place, that is also uncertain. He 
was probably born in Western Iran, but much of his 
missionary work was done in Bactria, in the East. The 
native tradition knows of miracles attending his birth 
and infancy. The child, we are told, laughed loudly 
the moment it was born into the world. The attempts 
of demons to destroy it are frustrated by divine power. 
Like most great religious teachers Zoroaster abandons 
the world when he becomes of age in order to prepare 
for his mission. 

It is related how he underwent and successfully with- 
stood temptation. The great revelation came to him at 
the age of thirty. Transported, like Mohammed, into 
the presence of the supreme deity, he hears from the lips 
of Ahura Mazda the teachings of which he was to be 
the prophet and apostle. The struggles of his mission- 
ary career were much like those of other reformers, 
but finally he succeeded in winning over King Vish- 
taspa, and the religion was carried to triumph by the 
strong arm of this Constantine of the Iranian faith. 
Zoroaster is said to have been forty-two years of age 
when this happened, and he is said to have died at the 
age of seventy-seven. 

The native Persian tradition, as represented by the 
famous national Epic, the Shah Namah of Firdausi, 
relates that he was slain when the fierce Turanians 



58 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

stormed Balkh. But, though the prophet died, his re- 
ligion lived on, and was adopted, in all likelihood at 
least, by the great Achsemenian kings, the successors of 
Cyrus and Darius, and became one of the dominant 
religions of the ancient East. But it, also, shared the 
reverses of the Persian monarchy, when Alexander the 
Great began his career of conquest. 

Parsee tradition speaks of him as " the accursed Iskan- 
dar," the man who destroyed the sacred texts, and who 
scattered the priests. For five centuries the faith was 
in neglect until the accession of the Sassanian dynasty, 
in 226 a.d., when a great revival came, and Zoroas- 
trianism attained its greatest prosperity, which continued 
until it finally succumbed, never to rise again, before 
the fanatical assaults of Islam. The battle of Navahend, 
in 641, sealed its fate; the majority of its followers 
accepted the new religion. Of the few who remained 
faithful some were scattered throughout their native 
land, but most of them preferred exile and fled to India. 
To-day most of the Parsees are at Bombay, where they 
form a community of about ninety thousand souls, highly 
prosperous, highly respected, and practicing as of old 
the inculcated virtue of generosity. 

The sacred book of the religion, the Parsee Bible, 
is the Avesta, and occupies the same place in the litera- 
ture of Iran as the Vedas do in that of India. The title, 
Zend-Avesta, often given to it is not strictly correct. In 
Pahlavi (that is middle Persia, the language in which 
the later literature was written), the name is Avistak u 
Zand; now Zand means " commentary " and Avistak 
probably means " text " or " law." Hence the language 
in which the book was written should not be called 
" Zend," as is often done. It should be called, if any- 
thing, " Avestan." To call it " Zend " is simply calling 
it by the name of the commentary, instead of calling it 



ZOROASTER AND THE AVESTA 59 

by the name of the book itself. This language is Indo- 
Germanic; together with the Sanskrit it constitutes the 
Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-Germanic family. It 
is very closely akin to Sanskrit, but not quite so difficult. 
The script in which it is written is of Semitic origin, 
and, like all Semitic script, is traced from right to left 
and not from left to right. 

The existence of such a body of writings as the Avesta 
was long suspected from allusions in ancient authors, 
but not until the eighteenth century was the Avesta 
really discovered. Then Anquetil du Perron, a young 
French scholar, specially went to India for this pur- 
pose, and after many trials and hardships he succeeded 
in bringing back to Europe the first copy of the sacred 
text, and the first translation into any European language, 
into French, appeared in 1771. It was the starting 
point for the study of Iranian philology, in spite of the 
many imperfections that naturally belong to a first at- 
tempt. 

As to the Avesta itself, a few words must suffice for 
this lecture. Originally it was much more extensive 
than what we have to-day. In its present form its 
different parts date from different periods. The first 
portions, the metrical hymns, the Gathas, are ascribed 
to Zoroaster himself, and it is certain that the faith is 
here represented in its purest form. The Avesta is 
supplemented by a rich Pahlavi literature, just as our 
own Bible is supplemented by the Patristic writings ; 
but of these Pahlavi writings I mention only one as an 
important source for our knowledge concerning the 
Persian doctrine of a future life. It is the Arda Viraf 
Ndmak, the story of a saint who, like Dante, had a vision 
of hell and described its horrors. 

The religion itself, when we come to examine it, 
presents, as its most striking feature, what is called 



6o UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

Dualism, which is nothing but an attempt to explain the 
origin of evil. Two great principles, Good and Evil, 
are assumed as having existed from the beginning of 
time. Ormazd represents the good, Ahriman the evil. 
An unceasing warfare is waged between them. Ormazd's 
creation is wholly good ; Ahriman's is wholly bad. The 
one dwells in flight and the other in darkness. And yet 
there is a monotheistic tendency in this dualistic system, 
for it postulates the ultimate triumph of good over evil, 
and the final disappearance of evil from the world, when 
the Kshathra Vairya, or " Wished-for Kingdom," the 
millennium, shall arrive. The advent of this blessed 
state is clearly foretold, and it behooves man to aid its 
coming by using the freedom of his will rightly, by 
choosing to practice the good in preference to the 
evil. 

The supreme God is Ahura Mazda. That is the Aves- 
tan form. In modern Persian he is called Ormazd. In 
the ancient Persian inscriptions he is invoked as Aura- 
mazda. Ahura probably means " lord," and mazda is 
akin to the Sanscrit word medhas, which means " wis- 
dom." No concrete image is ever given in Iranian art 
of this deity. The Iranians had a very spirtual con- 
ception of their supreme god. The solitary picture 
which is found on the rock inscription of Behistan, is 
borrowed from Babylonian art. Nor does the literature 
give a definite description. All that is said of his appear- 
ance is that he is surrounded by a majesty of flame. This 
absence of images must have forcibly struck the ancient 
Greeks, whose plastic imagination gave a human form 
to every divinity, and, indeed, Herodotus does comment 
upon this fact as peculiar to the religion of the ancient 
Persians. 

The conception of the supreme deity is strikingly pure 
and lofty. His very name implies wisdom and power. 



ZOROASTER AND THE AVESTA 61 

He is described in the texts as good, holy, radiant, 
righteous and just. He is the supreme lawgiver, watch- 
ful, infallible, all-knowing; eternal light is his dwell- 
ing-place. In fact, light is spoken of sometimes as his 
clothing or his vesture. But above all he is a creator; 
he has created all the good in the world, — the light, the 
earth, the plants; — and his creation is pre-eminently 
an intelligent one. 

Throughout the Zoroastrian literature the creator 
idea is emphasized. The most conspicuous and frequently 
recurring epithet bestowed upon Ormazd, is datar 
(creator). In the ancient inscriptions the great Persian 
kings proclaim Aura-mazda as mathishta baganam, " the 
greatest of gods," — a Creator and Preserver. 

Associated with and subordinate to Ormazd is an 
elaborate array of celestial spirits, constituting a well- 
defined hierarchy, and closely corresponding to the 
Christian conception of angels. His mighty ministers 
are the Amesha Spentas, the " Immortal Holy Ones," 
the modern Persian Amshaspands, corresponding to our 
archangels. There are six, and their names are simply 
personifications of abstract virtues, attributes of the 
Creator himself; for instance, Vohu Manah, ("Good 
Mind ") ; Asha Vahishta (" Best Righteousness ") ; Ksha- 
thra V airy a ("Wished-for Kingdom"); Spenta Ar- 
maiti (" Holy Piety "), and so on. 

Scarcely inferior to these is Sraosha ("Obedience"), 
a sort of Iranian St. Michael, who is the special smiter 
of demons, the wicked daevas or the drujes. He is 
associated with Rashnu, the angel of Justice, and Mithra, 
the angel of Light, and these three form the awful 
tribunal that judges the soul immediately after death. 
Mithra is of especial interest to students of religious 
history. Originally, like the Vedic Miira, a primitive 
Aryan Sun-deity, he becomes in the Avestan system the 



62 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

spirit of truth, the favorite Iranian virtue, and he rises 
to a position of the utmost importance, becoming the 
object of a special cult which, it is well known, extended 
all over Europe and even as far as Britain. Other 
minor deities, the Yasatas ("Worshipful ones"), are 
mere abstractions or personifications of natural elements 
such as the sun, the moon, the stars, and the sacred 
Haoma-plant ; the plant used for making the sacred 
drink, corresponding to the Vedic Soma. 

Afar (fire) deserves special mention, because fire 
was a symbol of the divinity, and was regarded as partic- 
ularly sacred. It occupies a conspicuous place in the 
Avestan cult, so much so that the name " Fire-worship- 
ers " has been applied to the Parsees, of course quite 
erroneously. They do not worship fire at all, but use 
it as a symbol. 

YVe must also mention the enigmatical Fravashis, who 
have been variously explained. By some they are re- 
garded as the spirits of the departed ; according to the 
opinion of others, they correspond most nearly to the 
pre-existent ideas of Platonic philosophy. 

The parallels which this system presents to Christian- 
ity and Judaism are obvious, particularly in the case of 
Ahura Mazda ; but there is a great difference. Jehovah 
is the Creator of the whole universe ; his omnipotence is 
absolute ; but Ormazd creates only the good creatures. 
He is limited in his activity by the chief evil spirit, 
Ahriman. In the Avesta this spirie is called Angra 
Mainyu } a name of obscure etymology. The first word 
may mean " hostile," the second certainly means " spirit." 
The name does not occur in the old Persian inscriptions. 
Ahriman is a distinctly Zoroastrian conception, the most 
pronounced idea of a satanic being which any pre-Chris- 
tian religion possesses. He is the implacable foe of 
Ormazd and the good creation. 



ZOROASTER AND THE AVESTA 63 

Ponru-Mahrka (" full of death "), and duzhdao (" evil 
knowing") are his most frequent epithets; darkness is 
his abode. He knows only the present and the past ; the 
future belongs to Ormazd alone. He has existed in- 
dependently of Ormazd from eternity, but he will not 
be eternal, — at the end of time he will be destroyed. 

A consistent system of Dualism requires an elaborate 
diabolical hierarchy, in order to oppose the celestial one, 
The Zoroastrian hell, and its infernal host, leave nothing 
to be desired in point of completeness of detail. There 
is an immense array of daevas and drujes. Every Am- 
shaspand or archangel is opposed by some arch-fiend, 
the chief of whom is Aka Manah, (Evil Mind), the 
opponent of Vohu Manah (Good Mind). Among the 
others, the most interesting to us is Aeshma, the Demon 
of Wrath, whose name is familiar to us as the biblical 
Asmodeus (the Avestan Aeshma daeva) in the Book of 
Tobias. 

Besides these arch-fiends there is a host of inferior 
demons of different rank, such as Daevas, the later Per- 
sian divs, Drujes, for the most part subordinate female 
demons; Yatus "sorcerers" and Pairikas, a sort of 
fairies of evil seductive nature, who have become widely 
known as the Peris of later Persian poetry, and as such 
have passed into Western literature. I need only men- 
tion the story of " Paradise and the Peri " in Moore's 
" Lalla Rookh." There are also other evil creatures, 
of which the half-human monster Azhi Dahaka deserves 
special mention. 

Now a word as to the ethics of the religion. If paral- 
lels with Christianity were striking in the angelology 
and the demonology, they are still more striking when 
we come to examine the Avestan ethical code. Free 
will and moral responsibility, these are the two cardinal 
points of the Zoroastrian doctrine. Between the two 



64 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

opposing realms man stands as a free agent, free to choose 
the good or the evil. He is Ormazd's creature, and 
therefore he should choose the good. Ormazd has made 
known to him, through his prophet, the divine law, 
and at his death he will have to answer for the use 
which he has made of this knowledge. Punishment 
and reward will be meted out according to the life which 
he has led in this world. The evil spirit and his hosts 
will tempt him. Zoroaster, like Christ himself, was thus 
tempted. The sovereignty of the whole world, so the 
Avesta tells us, was offered to him, but, like Christ, he 
spurned the offer. Note that action is the keynote of 
the Zoroastrian religion; unlike Buddhism, quietism is 
not its highest ideal. With the fatalistic and pessimistic 
Hindu systems, with their doctrine of Karma and their 
never-ending cycle of existences, the Avestan system 
has nothing in common. Its moral and ethical code does 
not differ much from our own ; purity of body and soul 
are enjoined, also charity, generosity and, especially, 
truthfulness. Perjury, impurity and violence are un- 
sparingly denounced. The ethical code of Zoroastrian- 
ism may be summed up in the ever-recurring triad of 
humata, hiikhta, hvarshta (good thought, good word, 
good deed). 

Note, therefore, that the Zoroastrian religion dis- 
tinctly recognizes that sin may be committed in thought 
as well as in act. 

Asceticism is wholly unknown to this religion, which 
rather encourages a wholesome enjoyment of life. 
Christian anchorites, Hindu fakirs and Sufic Derwishes 
were unknown institutions in ancient Iran. Most pecul- 
iar are the funeral rites of the Parsees. They do not 
bury their dead, but expose them on special structures 
called dakhmas (towers of silence), to be devoured by 
vultures. This singular and, to us, rather repulsive 



ZOROASTER AND THE AVESTA 65 

custom originated in the extreme reverence entertained 
for the purity of the elements, earth, water, fire. Strin- 
gent prescriptions to keep these elements pure from 
defilement, especially from contact with dead matter, 
are enjoined in the Avesta, so that corpses can neither 
be burned, buried, nor thrown into the water; hence 
they are exposed to the birds of the air on the towers 
of silence. 

Of course there is also a darker side to the picture. 
In spite of the injunction as to chastity, polygamy and 
concubinage did exist in ancient Persia. Stupid super- 
stitions and resultant repugnant practices were also not 
wanting. Especially hateful to us is the practice of 
what is called Khvaetvadatha, which is nothing else but 
next-of-kin marriage, brothers even marrying sisters. 
This has been given up long since and modern Parsees 
even deny that it ever existed. But the proofs are 
against them. Revolting cruelty is shown in the pun- 
ishments inflicted on traitors, as recorded in the inscrip- 
tions, — flaying, impaling and mutilations were com- 
mon. Other offenses, which the Avesta regards as 
serious, as for instance, walking barefoot, seem to us 
too trivial to be noticed, and we cannot understand why 
they have found their way into a law code. 

And now for the eschatology, the doctrine of the 
final things. It is in this doctrine and in its conception 
of a future life, that Zoroastrianism appears in its most 
ideal aspect, and presents the most striking parallels to 
Christianity, especially to Catholicism. After death the 
soul hovers around the body for three days before it 
leaves the earth. It is then met by a fair maid, if the 
deceased has been good, but by an ugly hag if he has 
been wicked. These escort him into the presence of the 
angels, Mithra, Sraosha and Rashnu. Then the balance 
is brought forth. The good and evil deeds are carefully 



66 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

weighed, and the turn of the impartial scales irrevocably 
decides the fate of the soul. This is the usual way of 
representing the judgment in the Avesta. You will 
notice the striking analogy between this doctrine and 
the doctrine of private judgment after death as taught 
by the Catholic church. The soul next comes to the 
Chinvat bridge, which spans the abyss of hell. This 
bridge becomes broad for the good spirit, which walks 
across in safety, but it becomes narrow, like the 
edge of a sword, for the evil spirit, which then falls 
into the bottomless pit. Onward the good spirit passes 
through the regions of the stars, the moon and the 
sun, corresponding to the grades of good thoughts, 
good words, good deeds, until it reaches Garonmana, 
" the House of Song," the blessed abode of Ormazd and 
the angels, the place of eternal light; but the lost 
soul plunges downward through three grades of evil 
thoughts, evil words, evil deeds, into the abode of 
wretchedness. 

Of the Iranian hell, as I have said, we have a vivid 
description in the Pahlavi work, called " The Vision 
of Arda Viraf.'"' A Dantesque vision of the place of 
torment which awaits those who sin. It is there de- 
scribed as a place of palpable darkness, of evil stench, 
wherein the poor souls are crowded together, " like the 
hairs on a horse's mane," where they suffer the pangs of 
thirst and, as an extreme misery, a feeling of utter and 
desolate loneliness, analogous to the misery which the 
damned in Christian theology suffer, through being de- 
prived of the sight of God. A special place is provided 
in this system, for those whose good and evil deeds 
exactly counterbalance. This place is called Hames- 
takan, the " Ever Stationary," and there the souls of 
such unfortunates remain to the final day. Here again 
the analogy to the Catholic doctrine of purgatory is 



ZOROASTER AND THE AVESTA 67 

apparent; but notice the difference, — the Avestan 
Hamestakan is a place for the indifferent, not for the 
righteous; it is not a place where the righteous enter 
and where they are cleansed of their imperfections be- 
fore they are allowed to appear before the all-righteous 
Lord ; it is a place for those who have simply lived 
indifferently, and there they abide until the day of 
judgment. They do not suffer and they are not happy. 
They remind us of the people for whom, we may re- 
member, Virgil expresses his contempt to Dante in the 
famous third canto of the Inferno, when he points out 
to the poet the souls of those who lived " without 
blame and without praise." " Fama die loro il mondo 
esser non lassa, Misericordia e giustizia gli sdegna; Non 
ragioniam di lor ma guarda e passa," — " The world does 
not permit any report of them; mercy and justice 
spurn them; let us not talk about them, but look and 
pass," — too contemptible, in other words, to be noticed. 
In the Avesta these unfortunates fare a little better than 
in Dante's great epic. 

The Zoroastrian doctrines of the end of the world 
and the resurrection are striking in their resemblance 
to those of Christianity. The coming of a savior and 
the resurrection of the dead is distinctly predicted in the 
Avesta. The end of the world is heralded by signs 
and tokens not unlike those of the Apocalypse. Prophets 
born from the seed of Zoroaster will be the forerunners 
of the great Saoshyant or Savior who will come in the 
last period. And each of these saviors will be born 
in a supernatural manner, from a virgin bathing in the 
Kansava lake, — another striking parallel to Christian 
doctrine. The Messiah will accomplish the Frashoke- 
reti or rejuvenation of the world and preside over the 
resurrection, when each soul will assume its former 
body and recognize its relatives and friends. 



68 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

And then the Day of Judgment is at hand; the right- 
eous are separated from the unrighteous, and the earth 
is then consumed by a general conflagration. A flood 
of molten metal pours forth, and through this all men 
must pass; to the good it feels, as the Pahlavi text tells 
us, like warm milk, but to the wicked it feels like real 
molten metal. And then the creation having been puri- 
fied in this awful flood, the great final struggle will 
take place; the Saoshyant, and the heavenly hosts will 
hurl back the final assault which is made by the powers 
of Evil on the kingdom of Good, and the kingdom of 
Good will triumph. The kingdom of Evil will be ab- 
solutely destroyed, and hell itself will be brought back 
in order to enlarge the rejuvenated world. Good then 
will reign supreme. The world after this, thus rejuve- 
nated, will be undying, never to perish again, and all men 
unite to sing the praise of Ormazd, through whom 
creation has been restored to purity. 

It must be added, however, that these doctrines, 
though distinctly recognized in the Avesta, were not 
developed in detail until later times. They are most 
explicitly presented in the Pahlavi texts, especially in 
the Biindahishn. 

As for the Parsee cult, there is an elaborate ritual 
by which divine worship is carried on. Divine worship 
is laid upon man as a duty; and, furthermore, it is to 
be carried on according to certain forms by a priesthood ; 
it cannot be carried on according to the individual's 
pleasure, so a hereditary priesthood is provided and still 
kept up ; there are also temples, although apparently little 
used in Zoroaster's day. To-day the Parsees have fine 
temples at Bombay and elsewhere. The ritual varies but 
little from that of two thousand years ago, and it presents 
numerous analogies to our own. The leading rites 
consist in the Haoma-sacrifice, the care of the Sacred 



ZOROASTER AND THE AVESTA 69 

Fire, and the chanting of the liturgical hymns and 
passages from the Avesta. Bigotry is not fostered. On 
the contrary, a humane tolerance characterizes the 
Parsees of the present day, though they do not respond, 
as a rule, to the proselytizing efforts of Christian mis- 
sionaries. 

Such, in brief, is an outline of the religion of Persian 
Iran, founded by Zoroaster, and still practiced by a few- 
faithful followers in India and Persia. 

The monotheistic tendency existing from the very 
beginning is even more rigidly insisted on by the modern 
Parsees, and the objectionable practices, like Khvaetva- 
datha, are largely done away with; and whether we 
view the religion from the point of view of dogma or 
of ethics, we must admit that it is vastly superior to 
almost any one of the ancient religious systems, — in 
fact, inferior only to Judaism and Christianity. 

The opinion of a learned Jesuit theologian, quoted by 
Casartelli in his article in the Catholic Encyclopaedia, 
is this : " The Avestan system is the highest religious 
result to which human reason, unaided by revelation, can 
attain." 

I believe that this opinion is not at all exaggerated, 
but simply an impartial and unbiassed expression of the 
truth. 



VI 

THE RELIGION OF BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA 
By Francis Brown, D.D., LL.D. 

President of Union Theological Seminary 

There are two great rivers in Western Asia that empty 
into the Persian Gulf. Both of them rise in the moun- 
tains of Armenia; one of them makes a great bend to 
the westward, flows then for a short distance south- 
ward and turns to the southeast, and continues that 
course till it reaches the sea. The other, whose source 
is separated by only a mountain ridge from the first, 
flows slightly east of south and then south till it, too, 
reaches the sea, only a few miles from the mouth of the 
former river. One of these is the Euphrates and the 
other is the Tigris. 

At the present day they reach the sea by a common 
channel, but in the time of which I am to speak their 
course was separate to the very end, the Persian Gulf 
extending at that time further to the north than it does 
now. Along the southern course of the Euphrates lay 
several important cities. The best known of them was 
Babylon. On the upper course of the Tigris the most 
important settlement was the great town that we know 
as Nineveh. Babylon was the chief city, in historical 
times, of Babylonia, and Nineveh of Assyria. 

These countries were inhabited by a people speaking 
a common language with only slight dialectic differences. 
They emerged, it is believed, from the great interior 
table-land of Arabia, and proceeded north and northeast- 

70 



RELIGION OF BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA 71 

ward, Babylonia, therefore, being the first of these coun- 
tries to be settled by them. The wave passed on and 
reached Assyria. 

Prior to the irruption of these people from Arabia, 
there was also a population — at least in Babylonia — 
of a different stock, some traces of which remain in 
the monuments which are now in our possession. But 
the great bulk of the population of the whole region 
inclosed by these two great rivers, — especially populous 
along their banks, — was of one language and prob- 
ably of one blood, the relation being similar to the rela- 
tion between Austria and Germany, — separate politically 
for long periods, rivals, in conflict often, sometimes one 
and sometimes the other getting the upper hand. And 
this common stock was related in language, and perhaps 
also in blood, to the Hebrew people, so important to us 
and to the world in the history of religion. 

These peoples were themselves religious peoples. 
Like all nations that have thus far become known to man 
by actual exploration or by historical inquiry, they were 
concerned with religion, but these more than most. 
Especially was this the case with Babylonia. The re- 
lation between Babylonia and Assyria was in some 
respects, from the point of view of literature, of the de- 
velopment of thought and of religion, like the relation 
between Greece and Rome. 

You remember how Paul found the people of Athens 
very religious. The same thing was true in a high de- 
gree of the people of Babylonia. We do not know them, 
from the Old Testament, especially on the religious side. 
These are the peoples whose kings appear from time to 
time in the political life of the kingdoms of Israel. Back 
in the fourteenth chapter of Genesis we have a reference 
to kings of Babylonia. Still earlier, in the tenth chapter 
of Genesis, there is what seems to be the remnant of a 



72 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

tradition in regard to the relation between Babylonia 
and Assyria, in connection with the story of Nimrod. 
Later we find Tiglath-pileser, in II Kings xv, and Pul, 
in the same chapter, — another name for the same man. 
In II Kings xvii, we have Shalmaneser. In Isaiah, 
chapter xx, we have the name of Sargon, one of the 
greatest of the Assyrian kings ; and in Isaiah xxxvi, and 
the following, as well as in II Kings xviii and xix, 
we have much to do with Sennacherib, the son of Sargon, 
whose threat of absolutely destroying Jerusalem and 
Judah was thwarted as the people confidently believed, 
by a special divine intervention. At the end of the books 
of Kings, in II Kings xxiv and xxv, as well as in the 
book of Jeremiah, we find mention of the great Baby- 
lonian king, Nebuchadnezzar, as it is given in Kings 
— Nebuchadrezzar, more accurately, in Jeremiah, — and 
of his successor, Evil-Merodach ; and with these the 
references to kings of Assyria and Babylonia end. Then 
comes the Persian period, and then the Greek, with which 
I am not now concerned. 

Notwithstanding the fact, however, that we know of 
them from the Old Testament almost exclusively on the 
political side, their religious history is one of equal 
interest. The religious constitution, if one may so say, 
of Babylonia was primarily that of separate cities, each 
city having its chief god, some cities having more than 
one, but even then one chief. These gods were related 
to each other and by degrees became associated with each 
other in the popular thought, until a complete pantheon 
of gods was established as the country was unified, 
under the supreme control of one of these cities. This 
took place at least as early as 2,000 years before the 
Christian era. 

The Assyrian religion, somewhat younger in its de- 
velopment than that of Babylonia, was from the beginning 



RELIGION OF BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA 73 

more unified, so far as we can judge, and the supreme 
power lay from the first in one chief city, carrying with 
it, in the religious thought of the people, the control of the 
country by one chief god. I say this is the earliest 
form of their historic religion, this city religion. There 
are, however, indications in the literature that there was 
a yet earlier form, a kind of belief in spirits, less dis- 
tinctly localized and personalized than these gods, — 
what is called technically, by students of religion, " anim- 
ism," a belief in the atmosphere being populated with 
spirits, the earth and trees, and all objects, being alive 
with a certain divine power, and the combination, inter- 
change and conflict of these various spirits bringing 
about various events upon the earth. This, however, 
is not an object of our historical study, because we have 
no longer any documents that date from that time, only 
some traces of it, in combination with the belief in these 
local gods to which I have referred. 

I should like to speak, in the first place, of the relig- 
ous institutions of Babylonia and Assyria, and then of 
their religious beliefs. 

I. If we had been walking four thousand years ago 
in the streets of one of the Babylonian cities, such as 
Babylon or its twin city Borsippa, on the other side of 
the Euphrates, — related to it very much as Brooklyn is 
to Manhattan, — or in Nippur or Sippara, or in Ur, — the 
city from which it is very likely that the Hebrew emigra- 
tion started — we should certainly have been impressed 
with the fact that religion was an important concern of 
life. In the smallest city we should have found at least 
one noble temple, in the larger cities many, sometimes 
crowding each other, rising above the mud huts in which 
the greater part of the populace lived, towering even over 
the larger houses of the generals and nobles, and rival- 



74 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

ing if not surpassing the splendor and distinction of the 
king's palaces. 

The most characteristic form of these temples was 
that of a pyramidal structure, formed of a series of plat- 
forms — three, four, sometimes as many as seven, one 
above the other, the upper platform a little smaller than 
the one below so as to give the effect of a series of huge 
steps as one looked at it from a distance. Near every 
one of these stood an altar, and at the top a chamber, 
inclosed, for the dwelling-place of the god. We should 
see priests in great numbers, moving about among those 
temples, and ascending from one platform to another 
from time to time. We should hear music, both of sing- 
ing and of instruments, accompanying and forming a 
part of the worship. We might very likely meet a pro- 
cession, passing through the narrow streets and crowd- 
ing one into a doorway to get out of the path, of white- 
robed ministrants, bearing the image of a god and 
accompanying the march with singing and with the music 
of flutes and of rude harps. We could not fail to believe 
that religion, in the form of institution, was a matter 
with which the life of the people was very closely con- 
cerned. Great feast days of religious significance, we 
should find observed; sacrifices of large amount offered 
upon the altars ; and even in private life, if we came into 
homes we should find sick people, with priests at their 
side, going through exorcisms in the name of deities; 
and we should find that in planning for life the religious 
relations of men had to be taken constantly into account. 

Omens were taken as a necessary preparation for any 
great undertaking, and in all ways the religious habit 
was intertwined visibly with human life. 

In Assyria the temples were for the most part of 
simpler form, — an oblong structure, with a chamber 
partitioned off at the end for the image of the deity and, 



RELIGION OF BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA 75 

as in the other case, an altar standing out in front of this 
oblong building, — much more nearly resembling, then, 
the plan of the Hebrew temple which is familiar to us. 

Images were necessary in every temple, and there stood 
in front of the temples pillars, two at least, which remind 
us of the two pillars set up by Solomon at the portico 
of his temple in Jerusalem. 

There was also a great reverence for other sacred 
stones, apart from those that were thus made into pillars 
and set up in front of the temples. In one case we find a 
king of Babylonia who explored the ruins of an ancient 
temple, discovering the foundation stone of it, which, he 
says, was the veritable sanctuary of the Sun-God, the 
dwelling of his divinity. There seems to have been the 
conception that the essential quality of the god who was 
worshipped in the temple was to be found in the corner- 
stone of the temple, and resident within it ; and it reminds 
us, in form at least, of Jacob's experience at Bethel, — 
Jacob who gave the name of Bethel, " House of God," to 
the stone upon which his head had lain during the night. 

Not only were there priests, but there were also priest- 
esses. The exact function of the priestesses we do not 
yet know in detail, but they seem to have formed a 
natural part of the temple company and to have had 
some definite purpose in relation to the worship. 

Sacrifice was of many kinds ; animal sacrifice frequent 
and abundant; and not only domestic animals but even 
wild animals ; the products of the chase were offered 
upon the altars of the great temples. This seems to have 
been an inheritance from Arabia, where the same thing 
was practiced among the heathen Arabs before the time 
of Islam. There were, however, besides these, vegetable 
sacrifices of various kinds, grain and fruit; honey was 
offered as well. In addition to the vegetable offerings 
there were libations, — libations sometimes of wine but 



76 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

very frequently of water, perhaps because, in a country 
so dependent upon irrigation, the conception of water 
as one of the most valuable elements in life led to its 
use and worship. 

The question has been raised whether human sacri- 
fice was practiced, and in regard to that we do not know. 
There is no clear evidence that in Babylonia or Assyria 
human sacrifice was ever a part of the common ritual. 
There seem to have been cases where burials at the 
foundations of temples or other buildings were practiced, 
but whether or not that was connected with any form 
of sacrifice of human beings we are not able to say. 

Prayer was an important part of worship, and we have 
in the literature many prayers, some of them most pro- 
found and earnest — even noble in their conceptions, 
the desires of the people rising in a stream of eloquent 
words to the deities whom they conceived as above them. 
There are even prayer-books, collections of prayers such 
as were used in the different temples. 

Music, as I have said, both vocal and instrumental, 
formed a common part of worship. 

A word more in regard to omens. One of the great 
functions of the priests was to take the omens; they 
resembled the Roman priests in this. These omens were 
doubtless of various kinds, but the most elaborate that 
we know anything about were omens which took the 
form of an examination of the inwards of the animals 
sacrificed, particularly of sheep and particularly of the 
liver. So much was this the case that we find representa- 
tions on the monuments of the liver of a sheep, dia- 
grammed, marked off into many different squares or 
divisions, each one of them with a certain significance, 
and the appearance of spots upon one of these divisions 
or another, the health or disease manifesting itself in one 
part or another of this liver, and various other indica- 



RELIGION OF BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA 77 

tions, determined whether or not the enterprise on behalf 
of which the omen was taken was to be successful or dis- 
astrous. It is most elaborate, and I could take an hour 
or two in going into the details of this omen observation 
by means of the liver. 

Then, too, conjuration, exorcism, formed a very large 
part of the work of priests. As I shall point out in a 
moment, the conception of being under the influence 
of a harmful power, either a power essentially evil or 
the power of a god who had become angry with his 
worshippers, led to a resort to the exorcist, and the ex- 
orcist was a priest, and the modes of exorcism are very 
elaborate and often intricate. We have many of them, — 
long formulas covering pages when they are trans- 
lated into English, and printed in one of our books. These 
illustrations of belief in a supernatural world, even with 
perverted views of that world, involve some of the pro- 
found convictions of the Babylonians and Assyrians. 

One institution I must speak of particularly in a word, 
because of its great interest for us to-day. The question 
has been discussed over and over again, whether or not 
the institution of the Sabbath, which, under the priestly 
arrangement of the Hebrew religion, played such an im- 
portant part in the division of time and in the observance 
of religious functions, can be connected with any phe- 
nomena in Babylonia. We actually have what seems 
to be the same word with the Hebrew " shabbath," 
" shabatu " in the Babylonian language ; and it is applied 
apparently to certain specific days, and the interval be- 
tween those days is, at least in some cases, a seven-day 
period — or a six-day period. The seventh, fourteenth, 
twenty-first and twenty-eighth day of certain months, at 
least, seem to have been days marked for special religious 
observance. 

We are not perfectly sure that the name " shabatu " 



78 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

was applied to those particular days, but it may have 
been so. We find, also, a definition of " shabatu " as " a 
day of pacification of heart," which seems to refer to 
some special ceremonies of a religious kind designed to 
placate deities, pointing to religious observances of a pe- 
culiar sort upon those days. There is one tablet on which 
the wedge-writing, which has been read, seems to con- 
nect this shabatu or " Sabbath " (?) — if we may take it 
so with a question mark — with the fifteenth day of a 
given month ; that is to say, with the day of the full moon, 
and all these indications go to show that we have in the 
Babylonian religion, not so much anything like the Sab- 
bath, full-fledged, so to say, — a complete institution regu- 
larly recurring, — as the adumbrations and suggestions- 
of a similar observance, with a name which was becoming 
attached to some such holy day. The continuous week, 
from Sabbath to Sabbath, going on through the year 
without interruption, is not found in Babylonia. Its 
seven-day periods are confined to the requirements of one 
month, and begin over again at the beginning of the next 
month, so that always the seventh and fourteenth days of 
the month have the specific religious observances ; and if 
the name " Sabbath " can be applied to them at all it 
must be applied to them in that relation, as divisions of 
a month and not as continuous seven-day periods through- 
out the year. It is quite plain, then, that we cannot re- 
gard the Hebrew Sabbath as borrowed directly from the 
Babylonian Sabbath, but there are suggestions of the 
way in which the Sabbath observance may have gradu- 
ally grown up until finally the impress of divine sanction 
was put upon it among the Hebrew people. 

II. Under the head of " beliefs " there are two divi- 
sions, the first of which I shall have to pass over very 
briefly ; — what may be called the mythological concep- 
tions of the Babylonians and Assyrians. To this cate- 



RELIGION OF BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA 79 

gory belong the beliefs of the Babylonians in regard to 
Creation and to the Flood, and to the function of the great 
dragon, and others of that kind; because these were all 
interwoven with views in regard to deities which are 
distinctly of a mythological character, an embodiment of 
ideas and in no sense the representation of historical 
events, although the Babylonians themselves may have 
believed them to be the representation of historical 
events. 

There is a very distinct literary connection between the 
stories of the Creation and the Flood, and perhaps, even 
of the development of the serpent idea, in Babylonia and 
in Israel. Especially is this evident in the case of the 
Flood, where we have the same rescue of a few persons 
from a great catastrophe by water ; the saving of animals ; 
the sending out of birds ; the resting of the vessel at the 
expiration of the rise of the waters, and the emerging 
and sacrificing to deity. I say there is a distinct literary 
connection. There can be no question to any student of 
these documents that there is somehow a relationship be- 
tween the story of the Flood, and probably of the Creation 
also, that we have in Genesis, and that in the Babylonian 
records. The religious connection, however, is much 
less clear, because the polytheism, and all that is low and 
unworthy, and all the exuberance of miraculous detail, 
have disappeared from the stories as they come before 
us in the book of Genesis. They are possessed by a new 
spirit; they are the vehicle of a new religion. 

It has been thought by some that there are traces of 
Babylonian influence even in the New Testament. I can 
only say that it is no doubt true, that in the Apocalypse, 
— the book of Revelation, — the imagery is, to a con- 
siderable degree, borrowed from a common stock of Ori- 
ental imagery which had its origin in Babylonia, but, 
again, that the religious ideas which are expressed by 



80 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

that imagery are of a totally different kind. It is im- 
agery, not the transfer of religion. As far as the belief 
that the stories of the Gospels are dependent in any way 
upon the Babylonian myths is concerned, without going 
into details for which there is no time, I have to express 
my conviction, which is the result of careful and dispas- 
sionate study, that there is no foundation for this belief. 

A few words, then, lastly, about the characteristic 
doctrines of this great religion. Deity, to the Babylo- 
nians and Assyrians, is personality, but personality 
greater than man, transcendent personality, — to use long 
and technical words. Deity is conceived under many 
forms. There is a definite polytheism, — many gods, 
many embodiments of the divine idea. There is no 
real monotheism in Babylonia or in Assyria. We find 
the gods grouped. There are certain triads, — gods that 
appear in threes, Anu, Bel and Ea, the oldest of such 
groups that we know, with the Moon God and the Sun 
God and the great Goddess Ishtar, the embodiment of one 
of the planets, as a secondary group. 

In Assyria the great god Assur dominates all the rest, 
although we find the same deities that are familiar to us 
in Babylonia appearing also there. They are, for the 
most part, personifications of the powers of Nature; 
either of the heavenly bodies, or the sky, the earth and 
the sea themselves, or some great forces, like storm, 
lightning and the like, occasionally of human passions, 
and the resulting conflicts of men, a war god, for ex- 
ample, as with many peoples. The chief characteristic 
of these deities is that of power. They are conceived 
because men feel that there is something stronger than 
they in the world, before which they stand in awe. That 
is a very common source of religion among primitive 
peoples, and it certainly appears to have been so among 
the Babylonians and Assyrians, evidenced, for example, 



RELIGION OF BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA 81 

in creation, evidenced in dealing with masses of men, the 
progress of armies, the rise and fall of empires, — all of 
these are referred to the power of gods. Wisdom also 
is a characteristic of deity, evidenced in the impartation 
of knowledge, in the inventions and arts of men, and in 
the actual guidance of human affairs ; kings reign by the 
wisdom which is imparted to them by God. 

There is also a very high sense of justice, equity; the 
law codes which we have from the Babylonians, breathe 
in many parts a noble spirit of fair dealing as between 
man and man. And, besides, there is the profounder con- 
ception of compassion, of forgiveness, of graciousness, of 
friendliness on the part of deities toward their human 
worshipers. This is especially apparent in connection 
with sin, for there is a very deep sense of sin in the 
Babylonian literature. Sin and suffering are closely 
related, and it is not always easy to distinguish between 
the physical suffering and the sin which is conceived as 
the occasion of it. Both of them find strong expression 
in what are called the penitential psalms of Babylonia, the 
outpourings to deity of the feeling of the heart when a 
man is overcome with a sense of his guilt, brought home 
to him by the fact that he is a sufferer from disease. The 
same combination we find in our book of Psalms; for 
example, the 32d Psalm ; it is very difficult to distinguish 
in that psalm between the purely spiritual sense of sin 
and the present physical suffering of the sinner. 

Propitiation is possible, and substitution occurs occa- 
sionally, although it is rare. It is generally in a case of 
exorcism, where an animal is substituted for the man 
who is suffering from the evil influence of deity in order 
that he may be freed from it himself. Propitiation is 
usually almost equivalent to purification, and there is 
very seldom a clear line of demarcation between the two. 

The earth is the scene of human life. The conception 



82 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

of life hereafter is very much like that of the early He- 
brews, a vague existence without clear consciousness, in 
the under-world, to which men go after death, when the 
body is laid in the grave, and in which whatever exist- 
ence is carried on thereafter finds its gloomy home. To 
be carried away to dwell forever with the gods in joy is 
a rare privilege to which few attain. 

There is no general doctrine of salvation, no doctrine 
of resurrection, no conception of a future life of glory 
and conscious satisfaction as open to mankind. Particu- 
larism, and the absence of any sense of human brother- 
hood, mark Babylonian religion, as they do many other 
ancient religions. And the great fundamental differ- 
ence between Babylonian religion and that of Israel, 
apart from the question of polytheism — which is not, 
after all, a fundamental difference, because the ancestors 
of the Hebrews were polytheists, — is that in Babylonia 
religion does not grow. 

Joshua xxiv reminds us that the fathers of Israel be- 
yond the river served other' gods. But Israel left that 
stage behind. The great difference is that in the Baby- 
lonian religion there is no seed of progress. The Babylo- 
nians and Assyrians never left their many gods behind. 
The religion four thousand and five thousand years ago 
is the same as the religion twenty-five hundred years 
ago. There is no advance from a lower to a higher. 
There is no preparation for a new and transforming 
stage. In that respect the difference between the religion 
of Israel and the religion of Babylonia and Assyria is 
world-wide, because primitive as Israel's religion at first 
was, rudimentary as it appears at the early beginnings of 
it, tainted with superstition and with error as it certainly 
was even into later generations, we do find that it had 
the seeds of growth, it went on from the lower to the 
higher, it prepared the people and prepared mankind for 
the complete and satisfying revelation in Jesus Christ. 



VII 

SOME RELIGIOUS BELIEFS OF THE 
EGYPTIANS 

By Charles Ripley Gillett, D.D., L.H.D. 

« 

Registrar and Secretary of the Faculty, Union Theological Seminary 

As one sits on the upper deck of a Nile steamer and 
looks to the deck below, one may see an Arab with tur- 
baned head, spreading a mat upon which he bows facing 
the East. As one journeys through the desert one may 
see his camel-driver or his dragoman spread his mat on 
the sand and prostrate himself upon it facing toward 
Mecca. Both of the men repeat a litany and mumble 
prayers to the god who alone is god, and whose prophet 
Mohammed claimed to be. 

These men are only examples of what may be seen 
daily at stated hours all over the Levant where the religion 
of Islam is professed, and it is a worship which finds 
multitudes of faithful adherents. 

This statement is made to illustrate a fact emphasized 
by Dr. Washburn of Robert College, near Constantinople, 
recently, that the thought of God and the practice of his 
worship is more a matter of constant habit and of personal 
consciousness in the East than in the West. At certain 
hours of day and night the wonderfully musical call to 
prayer, the muezzin of the minaret of every mosque of 
Mohammed, is sent out over the land to call the faithful to 
prayer. Multitudes hear and obey when they hear; 
multitudes do not hear and yet obey. 

It was a striking phrase used by the Psalmist (x, 4)' 
when he described the wicked, saying that " God is not in 

83 



84 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

all their thoughts." In a word, the consciousness of the 
divine is a more striking characteristic of East than of 
West. 

And we must go a long way back in order to find the 
beginning of this state of affairs. One of the oldest 
civilizations which has left monuments and records, is 
that of the land of the Nile. Volume after volume of 
inscriptions has been printed, and a small library of 
translations has been published, but the whole of them 
with few exceptions are made up of texts that have a 
religious significance. Professor Breasted, of Chicago, 
has gathered the historical texts of Egypt into four octavo 
volumes, containing less than 1600 pages, text and com- 
ment; but the religious texts outnumber the historical a 
hundred to one at the least. This illustrates in a way 
the fact which was stated above, that the consciousness of 
the divine has ever been more real in the East than in the 
West. 

This is not to pass judgment upon the relation of 
religious consciousness to moral actions. The man whom 
you see praying on the fore deck may cheat you an hour 
later by selling you a bogus scarab while swearing by 
Allah that it is genuine. You are a foreigner, a dis- 
believer, and hence a fair prey. It is a lack of moral 
correlation from which he suffers; it may be that the 
difference in faith and in worldly condition seems a 
sufficient justification. Be that as it may, the fact stands 
that the Oriental is more ostentatiously pious than the 
Occidenal. 

We may go as far back as we will in the history of 
Egypt, and we find there monuments and records which 
point only in one direction : belief in divine power, or at 
least in some superhuman forces, and a belief in a life be- 
yond the present. To these beliefs we owe almost all 
that has come down to us from Egyptian antiquity. A 



SOME BELIEFS OF THE EGYPTIANS 85 

very small part of all that the Egyptians wrought can be 
traced to other causes. Temples are now in ruins, but 
they testify to a belief in the gods of the Egyptian 
pantheon, numberless and varied. Tombs testify to belief 
in a life to come and to a continued personal existence and 
consciousness. That the implements of daily life were 
deposited with the dead, indicates that the conception of 
that life was that it would be similar to the life here. 
The books that were placed with the dead as guides and 
monitors in the dangers that beset the journey to the 
great hereafter, these books are the ones that give us an 
insight into the beliefs and practices of the pious Egyp- 
tian. 

Most of that which is to be said at this time upon the 
beliefs of the Egyptians, will have to do with these things 
rather than with the gods whom they worshiped. A 
single paper does not give one space in which to talk 
about even the chief of the pantheon of Egypt. A chapter 
would be readily exhausted in cataloguing the chief deities 
and in tracing only a few of the changes which they 
underwent in the course of a development that lasted 3000 
or 4000 years. There were local gods which had a 
tutelary relation to town, city or district. There were 
local gods which grew in influence or lost prestige as the 
town grew to a capital or shrank to a village. There 
were gods which were sun-gods or moon-gods, and 
testified to the conception of and veneration for the 
celestial bodies. There were gods with powers of evil, 
which must be appeased. There were good demons 
whose influence was exerted for the help of man in dis- 
tress or suffering. There were gods whose symbol was 
an animal, a crocodile, a hawk, a cat. The jackal, which 
prowled in burial places and in the desert, was the symbol 
of Anubis, the god of the deacl. Besides, there was a 
multitude of other gods, moral and immoral, who were 



86 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

in a constant state of flux, the one absorbing the charac- 
teristics of the other, till the limit of syncretism was 
reached. This progress is well illustrated in the case of 
the Theban god Amon, which from being a minor local 
divinity grew into a being of wonderful power as Thebes 
became the royal and political capital. 

There is one goddess worthy of particular mention, 
who does not fall under any of the categories mentioned 
above. She represents an abstract idea which plays a 
large part in the conceptions of the Egyptians, and whose 
symbol was the ostrich feather. Her name was Maat, and 
she was the personification of " Truth." Her symbol 
figures in the judgment scene as the counterpoise against 
the heart of the dead when it is weighed to determine the 
future fate of the departed. To this we shall return later. 

All lands have had a mythology, and Egypt was no 
exception; but a complete myth can hardly be found in 
the hieroglyphic records. We have a story of the destruc- 
tion of mankind by a flood, but it is meager and frag- 
mentary. The myth of Osiris is long and significant, but 
we have to implore the aid of the Greek Plutarch to fill 
out the gaps in the story. The texts are full of references 
to the gods and to certain characteristics which are not 
explained, but which must go back to some mythological 
background for their elucidation. 

The fact is that the subject of the gods of Egypt is 
too vast for a satisfactory treatment in a single paper or 
a single lecture. 

On the other hand, the Egyptian belief with regard to 
man and his future is comparatively simple and intel- 
ligible. Changes came, no doubt, and advances were 
made. But the fundamentals remained, and in a single 
fact we can find explanations of many practices which 
seem to us passing strange. 

Why was so much trouble taken to preserve the body 



SOME BELIEFS OF THE EGYPTIANS 87 

in semblance of its earthly shape? Why were the pyr- 
amids erected, those immense masses of solid masonry 
which have defied the ages and which still constitute one 
of the wonders of the world? Why were tombs cut in 
the solid rock at the bottom of deep pits, sometimes as 
much as sixty or seventy feet below the surface, or, as in 
the case of some of the XVIII dynasty kings, at the end 
of sloping tunnels which pierce the mountains from 600 
to 900 feet? This wonderful procedure is inexplicable 
until we have the key, but the key opens the lock and 
reveals the secret. The key is simple and the wonder 
disappears. The practice which seemed so odd at first is 
simple and obvious. 

The Egyptians did not hold to a division of the human 
being into two parts or even into three, soul and body, 
or body, soul and spirit. To him there were seven con- 
stituents of man, four of which are particularly of interest. 
The obvious part was the body (Xa) Kha. It was this 
by means of which man enjoyed the good things of life ; 
with its eyes he saw beauty, with its hands he felt objects, 
with its feet he walked, with its ears he heard, with its 
nose he smelled savors, and with its mouth he tasted that 
which was sweet and good. In a word, it was the body 
which made life worth living, and a continued existence, 
in which he believed, would be robbed of its attractiveness 
and its joyous delights if the body did not exist and 
become the renewed habitation of the soul. But when 
death came the body was still and cold. If left to itself 
it soon lost all semblance to its former shape, and became 
an object of disgust and abhorrence. Of course it became 
impossible as an abode for the re-incarnate spirit. 

Added to this was the belief in a Ka, a double, a dupli- 
cate of the man himself, but immaterial and ethereal. In 
some medieval drawings and sculptures the departing soul 
is represented in diminutive shape, escaping from the 



88 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

mouth of the dying. Similarly the Egyptian thought of 
the departure of the Ka, the genius, the double of the 
deceased. Since birth it had been beside the man more 
constant than his shadow. And along with the Ka, his 
intelligence, his Xu (Khu), and his soul, his Ba, had 
departed, and the ordinary conception was that these had 
gone in the shape of different birds. There were no 
bounds to the possibilities of their flight or their wander- 
ings — there was only one condition. If that were met, 
their continued existence was assured ; if not, they would 
cease to exist and go out into oblivion and nothingness. 
That one condition was the continued existence of the 
body, to which the soul and intelligence might return as 
to a refuge, revivifying it and making it live once more. 
The separation was temporary; but the body must be 
preserved in semblance of human form. 

Hence the introduction of the mummifying process. 
The removal of the brain through an aperture at the back 
of the nostril, and the separate treatment of the vital 
organs and their preservation in separate jars or 
receptacles, quite apart from the body, were necessities in 
the case ; quite incompatible with organic unity and vital 
function; but this seemed not to feaze the Egyptian in 
the least, for his theology contained already far more 
serious contradictions and combinations. After being 
soaked for a given time in natron (saltpeter), and after 
being wrapped in a sufficient number of cloths and 
bandages, the body assumed a shape like that of a man, 
and that sufficed. The product looked like a man and the 
soul had a refuge. 

But still it was not safe. Ants or insects might destroy 
it. If buried in the sands jackals or hyenas might dig 
it up. If deeply buried beyond reach of these beasts, it 
would be subject to the depredations of robbers, partic- 
ularly if filial piety or the commands of the deceased had 



SOME BELIEFS OF THE EGYPTIANS 89 

required that the personal adornments of the dead be 
retained in their usual place. To avoid all of these 
dangers deep pits with lateral burial chambers were 
arranged, and afterward the pits were filled with loose 
stone and earth. But even these expedients frequently 
failed, and in following ages most of the pit tombs were 
rifled by plunderers. Some, however, have escaped till 
now, and it was my singular good fortune in 1907 to 
stand at the mouth of such a pit and see a chamber opened 
which had not seen the light of day for probably at least 
5000 years. 

Tombs varied all the way from the gigantic pyramid 
of Cheops at Gizeh, the Mastaba tombs of nobles, and the 
pit tombs of the wealthy, to the sandy graves of the 
miserably poor whose hope of immortality was as meager 
and scanty as their lives had been. Continued existence 
thus became actually, though probably not theoretically, 
a matter dependent upon the wealth and resource of the 
individual, as provision for the costly process of mum- 
mifying and for the safeguarding of the mummy in ex- 
pensive tombs, was proportioned to the ability of the man 
to pay. The longing for immortality might have been 
as strong in either case, but ability to meet the conditions 
differed by whole diameters. 

It has seemed to me that I could not use the space now 
at my disposal better than by explaining some of the 
beliefs of the Egyptians as they are shown by the objects 
which are exhibited in our museums. The presentation 
does not pretend to be complete and exhaustive, but per- 
haps it will serve a practical and useful end in making 
more intelligible the things which one sees in going 
through the Egyptian gallery. 

Let us follow the course of the Egyptian from the time 
when the great change occurred. First came the making 
of the mummy. The body was prepared by the removal 



90 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

of the portions which were peculiarly subject to rapid 
disintegration. As already said, the brain was removed 
through a hole made in the back of the nostril where the 
bone is very thin. How it was accomplished we do not 
know with precision, but the absence of any substance 
except bitumen inside of the skull shows that it was done. 
The vital organs also were removed and preserved in 
bitumen. After being divided into four parcels they were 
distributed in the four " Canopic " jars (so called from 
the place where first found) which are to be seen in vari- 
ous sizes in our museum collections. They were usually 
made of stone, though wood and pottery were also em- 
ployed. Alabaster was a favorite material, and some ex- 
tant examples are very beautiful. Until the time of the 
XVIII dynasty the covers of these jars represented human 
heads, — frequently, if not usually, we may presume, por- 
trait heads. Later it became the fashion to make the cov- 
ers different, the heads being of a (i) man, (2) a hawk, 
(3) a jackal, and (4) a dog-headed ape. As time passed 
those jars became matter of form merely, and were not ex- 
cavated. The late ones had not the capacity of a tea-cup. 
In these jars the vital organs were deposited, at least 
constructively, and the jars were placed in the tomb near 
to the bier on which the mummy was laid. 

The preparation of the mummy itself has been 
described sufficiently already. The character of the tomb 
has been indicated in brief, its supposed freedom from 
violation being the quality most desired, whether it was in 
pyramid, pit or cavern cut in the side of a mountain. 
The hills back of Thebes are in places honeycombed with 
these burial-places, which are now frequently used as 
places of residence in hot weather. 

With the dead there were deposited various articles 
which had been used or worn during life, or models of 
such things as were too large or too valuable to be lost 



SOME BELIEFS OF THE EGYPTIANS 91 

in this way to the living. In many cases the jewels of 
the dead were arranged on their persons in fashion similar 
to that in life. A mummy recently found by the ex- 
cavators for the Metropolitan Museum, had three gar- 
ments beneath the outer wrapping, and outside of each 
layer was a necklace more or less elaborate, made of gold 
links or beads. Implements used in life were included: 
for instance, one held a piece of slate stone which had 
been used to rub the green color employed to paint the 
body ; another had a leather bag. Jars and vases contain- 
ing food and drink, were supposed to ward off hunger 
and thirst. Implements of the chase were to provide the 
means of hunting and of defense from enemies. Checker- 
boards for a game of draughts were to wile away the time. 
Hairpins and combs are found, with which the dead were 
to make their toilets as in life. Boats, either of wood or 
pottery, were to enable the dead to pass over the streams 
or seas which surrounded the abodes of the blessed. 
Pottery animals are found, cows to be slain for food, 
hippopotami to be hunted ; model houses rilled with serv- 
ants who are performing the routine duties of the house- 
hold, have been thus preserved. 

The walls of the tombs are also frequently covered with 
similar scenes, the sowing and gathering of grain, herd- 
ing and slaughtering of cattle, the catching of wild fowl 
in nets, and the bringing of specimens of farm produce. 
Sometimes inventories of the possessions of the deceased 
proprietor are given. In fact, from these tomb-reliefs 
we learn many of the particulars of private life in the 
Nile valley upwards of five thousand years ago. 

Among the most interesting of the objects thus de- 
posited with the dead were the small figures in human 
shape known as Ushabtis or " Answerers." They were 
made of wood, stone or pottery. The latter were made 
of red clay painted to indicate the garments in vogue, or, 



92 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

more frequently, of a sandy frit baked in a fire so hot 
as to reduce the sand and to cover the outside with a glaze, 
usually blue. In our Museum there is one in which the 
space for the name of the deceased is left blank, thus 
showing that it was part of an undertaker's stock in trade, 
ready to be bought, but never properly marked with the 
name of the man for whom it was purchased. Similarly 
there have been found copies of the " Book of the Dead," 
the most sacred of the Egyptian holy books, from which 
the owner's name had been omitted. 

The story of the Ushabti or " Answerer " is interesting. 
It was the substitute representation of a servant. Instead 
of killing a slave that he might go with his dead master 
into the future life and there serve him as he had done in 
this life, it was found that it was far more economical and 
much more to the advantage of those who remained alive, 
to allow the substitution of a figure of the servant. Be- 
sides, it was feasible to increase the number of servants 
indefinitely in this way, and, in fact, they have been found 
ranging in number from a few specimens up to six or 
seven hundred. The significance of the name " answerer " 
is found in the inscription usually written or engraved in 
a more or less abbreviated form in columns or bands on 
the mummy shaped body of the figure. In its complete 
form the inscription is taken from the Sixth chapter of 
the "Book of the Dead." Thus: " O statuette there! 
Should I be called and appointed to do any of the labors 
that are done in the nether world by a person according 
to his abilities, lo ! all obstacles have been beaten down for 
thee ; be thou counted for me at every moment, for plant- 
ing the fields, for watering the soil, for conveying the 
sands of east and west." (The figure replies:) " Here 
am I, whithersoever thou callest me." (Renouf.) These 
figures are usually in shape of a mummy, but with face 
and hands free. The hands hold the implements of 



SOME BELIEFS OF THE EGYPTIANS 93 

agriculture, and over the back is slung a bag indicated by 
incised lines. 

When prepared for burial the mummy was transferred 
to the west side of the Nile, where the tombs were for the 
most part located. The river ferry was supposed to 
typify the passage into the regions of the blessed, which 
was located in the west where the sun disappeared after 
his daily course, and where he began his nightly journey 
to the place of his daily rising. 

The beliefs of the Egyptians as to the place of the 
future life are interesting in their way, but they are too 
long and complicated for exposition in so brief a paper 
as this. But there are some items which had an interest 
as showing the moral standards of the ancient Nile 
dwellers. These are contained for the most part in the 
125th chapter of the Book of the Dead, already mentioned 
as one of their chief sacred books. We owe the preserva- 
tion of this work to the fact that copies, more or less full 
and complete, were put in the tomb with the mummy to 
serve as a sort of guide or vade mecum during the journey 
of the dead to the fields of blessedness, a journey that was 
beset by many and varied dangers. Many portals had 
to be passed, which only opened when certain formulae 
were uttered. Ferocious beasts and deadly serpents 
infested the path, against which magical forms of words 
were effective. 

But the test which was applied to all and through which 
each must pass successfully in order to attain to future 
joys, was that in which must be recited the so-called 
" Negative Confession " before the forty-two gods who 
sat in the hall of justice, the place of " Truth." 

When the deceased man comes to this point in his 
progress toward future bliss, he says : " Hail to thee ! 
mighty lord, god of righteousness ! I am come to thee, 
O my lord ; I have brought myself that I may look upon 



94 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

thy glory. I know thee, and I know the names of the 
forty-two gods who make their appearance with thee in 
the Hall of Righteousness; devouring those who harbor 
mischief, and swallowing their blood, upon the day of the 
searching examination in the presence of Unnef er " . . . . 

The chief judge is there described in a name which 
must have a mythological meaning, possibly referring to 
Isis and Nephthys, the sisters of Osiris, god of the dead. 
The name is " Thou of the pair of eyes, Lord of Right- 
eousness." The utterance of a name had magical force 
in many instances, serving as a sort of password and a 
protection from the evils which might befall the ignorant. 

The dead then recited a list of things which he had not 
done, from which the following selections are made: 

" Here am I ; I am come to thee ; I bring to thee right and have put 
a stop to wrong. 
" I am not a doer of wrong to men. 
" I am not one who slayeth his kindred. 
" I am not one who telleth lies instead of truth. 
" I am not conscious of treason. 

" I am not a doer of mischief 

" I am not a transgressor against the god. 

" I am not a talebearer. 

" I am not a detractor. 

" I am not a doer of that which the gods abhor. 

" I hurt no servant with his master. 

" I cause no famine. 

" I cause not weeping. 

" 1 am not a murderer. 

" I cause not suffering to men. 

" I reduce not the offerings in the temples. 

" I rob not the dead of their funereal food." 

and many more of similar tenor, indicating that the dead 
desires to be regarded as a model man. 

Next the candidate must pass before the forty-two 
judges, and address the proper words to each in turn. I 
shall quote a few of these as given by Renouf or Budge 
in their translations of the Book of the Dead, from which 



SOME BELIEFS OF THE EGYPTIANS 95 

the quotations already made have been taken. These 
judges are usually seated in rows with the appropriate 
salutation written next to each. It will be seen that it 
was no easy task to recite all of these formulae ; there was 
nothing in the figure of a god to indicate the particular 
attributes which he possessed. Their forms are fre- 
quently grotesque, many being composed of human body 
with the head of a beast, a crocodile, ram, jackal, dog, 
serpent, hawk or cow. Each one was supposed to have 
a particular department of human conduct under his 
charge, but the connection between the epithets applied 
to a god and the act whose commission is denied, is very 
remote or wholly obscure. 

Following are some of the items of the " Negative 
Confession " entire, with both the address to the god and 
the special form of wrongdoing which is repudiated : 

"1. Hail! thou whose strides are long, who cometh forth from 
Heliopolis : I have not done iniquity." 

" 2. Hail ! thou who art embraced by fire, who cometh forth from 
Kher-aha : I have not robbed with violence." 

" 4. Hail ! thou who eatest shades, who cometh from the place where 
the Nile riseth : I have not committed theft." 

" 6. Hail I thou double lion-god, who cometh forth from heaven : I 
have not made light the bushel." 

" 7. Hail ! thou whose two eyes are like flint, who cometh forth from 
Sekhem ; I have not acted deceitfully." 

And so the catalogue goes on, containing names which 
are hard to explain because they come from a range of 
mythological lore of which we are ignorant for the most 
part. In fact, this is the difficulty with much of the writ- 
ing which has been preserved to us. We do not know the 
particular incidents in the supposed lives of the gods, 
the special attributes which they were supposed to possess 
and a thousand and one details which might explain the 
allusions that are made with bewildering frequency. 

Our interest from the human side, however, is not in 



96 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

the fantastic deities which the Egyptian placed in his 
gallery of gods, but is in the moral standards which were 
indicated by the lists of things which were repudiated. 
Personal purity finds its place in the list, but the chief 
places are taken by the denial of deeds which find their 
effects in damage to one's fellow-man and in acts in 
defiance of or to the detriment of the gods. 

Among the former may be included these: theft, 
murder, cheating by light weights, deceit, falsehood, evil 
speaking, assault, damage to cultivated land, the act of the 
busybody, slander, unrighteous wrath, imposition, opposi- 
tion to justice, contention and strife, injustice, abuse, 
violence, hasty judgment, fondness for talk, cursing the 
king, pollution of the water supply, insolence, pride, unjust 
gain: these evil things are denied in the order indicated 
above, the list being without special order or discoverable 
logical sequence. 

There are also denials of deeds against the gods inter- 
spersed, such as denial of theft of things belonging to the 
gods, of the killing of sacrificial animals, of encroaching 
upon sacred times and seasons, of taking vengeance upon 
the god, of cursing the god, and of thinking scorn of the 
god of the city. 

There is no doubt that the man who could repeat this 
long catalogue with truth, would be a good and useful 
citizen, at all events one who would escape the censure of 
his neighbors. The implication is that his deeds had been 
of the opposite character, and that his life had been of a 
sort for positive good and benefit. 

From an early period of Egyptian history we have 
a book of moral precepts by a sage called Ptah-hotep, 
which inculcates the duties of man to man in positive 
fashion. Combined with the implied lessons of this part 
of the Egyptian litany we have a background of moral 
teaching which rose to a remarkably high level. 



SOME BELIEFS OF THE EGYPTIANS 97 

Connected with this same 125th chapter of the Book 
of the Dead, from which the foregoing quotations were 
made, there is a picture which represents the Judgment 
scene in realistic form. The deceased and his wife appear 
at the left side, dressed in white, and bowing toward the 
hall of judgment. In the center is a large scales or 
balance with two pans, on one of which is the truth- 
feather, the emblem of the goddess Maat, and on the 
other is the heart of the dead in its conventionalized 
shape. Beneath the beam of the balance stands the god 
Anubis, the jackal-headed deity of the dead, testing the 
scales and weighing the man's heart. On the top of the 
scales is the dogheaded ape, perhaps a mere ornament, but 
probably typifying some quality which we can only con- 
jecture. On the left are the two gods of birth. At the 
end of the scales above those deities is the soul of the 
departed represented as a bird, and under one branch of 
the scales is the Ka, the genius or double of the dead. 
At the right is the erect figure of the ibis-headed god 
Thoth, the god of learning and wisdom, who now is act- 
ing as the scribe and recorder, palette and brush in hand 
ready to write down the result of the weighing process 
which Anubis is conducting. Behind Thoth is the beast 
whose function is the devouring of the wicked, whose 
fate is symbolically determined by the weighing of heart 
against the truth-feather. He is a composite beast with 
the head of a crocodile, the forequarters of a lion, and the 
haunches of a hippopotamus. Truly a beast to typify 
a most terrible and ghastly fate. 

Perhaps space remains for one other topic within the 
limits set for me. That topic is magic and some of its 
manifestations and symbols, particularly the latter. There 
have been preserved to us whole books which are filled 
with tales, most of which have a magical feature. Among 
them is the " Tale of two Brothers/' in some particulars 



98 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

reminding one of the story of Joseph. Magical transfor- 
mations are invoked to extricate the hero from his dilem- 
mas. One of the early kings causes stories of magic to 
be told to him to wile away the time and to relieve his 
ennui. 

But in popular life the evidence of belief in magic is 
seen in the multitude of amulets which were used and 
which fill our museum cases with duplicates. Figures of 
the four genii of the dead were fastened upon the mummy 
to symbolize the protection which they were implored to 
give. A representation of an eye, sometimes doubled or 
even quadrupled, was supposed to possess some power, 
possibly warding off the evil eye, which played so impor- 
tant a part in the East, but more likely to symbolize one 
of the sisters of Osiris, who are usually portrayed as 
weeping for the dead. Figures of animals are found in 
profusion, each symbolizing the qualities belonging to 
the deity who had chosen a particular animal form as his 
special embodiment. Thus we have the cat, the jackal, 
the ibis, the crocodile, and in fact a whole menagerie 
forming a zoological pantheon whose explanation would 
take a series of volumes. 

One of these must be singled out for special mention on 
account of the frequency of its occurrence and of the in- 
terest aroused by its queer shape and character. It is 
the beetle — the scarab — as it is usually called. Our 
museums contain them in almost unlimited numbers, and 
they are seen frequently set in scarf pins, rings, and other 
articles of personal adornment (though it is to be feared 
that a large proportion of those thus worn are fabrica- 
tions of very recent date). 

The scarab is a beetle, commonly called a dung-beetle 
or a tumble-bug, which is found in profusion in the 
sands of Egypt and elsewhere. The egg from which it 
was hatched was hidden in the hot sand, and in due course 



SOME BELIEFS OF THE EGYPTIANS 99 

the bug appeared, working his own way to the surface 
and starting on his own independent career. No one saw 
the egg deposited ; the parentage was obscure. The bug 
was like Topsy, it " just growed." The figure of the bee- 
tle when used as a hieroglyphic sign had the most appro- 
priate significance imaginable ; it meant " to be, to exist," 
and finally it came to symbolize absolute being. The 
bug was reproduced in various substances, metal, stone, 
pottery or paste, with appropriate markings of head and 
wings above and of legs curved in at the sides and under 
the shell. When used as an amulet alone the bottom was 
sometimes left curved and the legs doubled up in relief 
from side to side. But usually the bottom was smoothed 
off and used for inscriptions of various sorts. Very many 
were used as seals, for the seal has always played an im- 
portant part in Oriental life, a string of seals being a 
badge of office similar to the bunch of keys of the house- 
wife. Others were used as amulets, pure and simple; 
and as such were apparently regarded as insuring the 
continued existence of their wearer. A few of large size 
have been found which contain historical texts, like the 
one in which a Pharaoh tells of his lion-hunting exploits, 
and how he killed " 1 10 lions, fierce ones ! " Many more 
contain the names of kings, but it is more than doubtful 
whether they were contemporary monuments. One of 
the strangest uses to which they were put was in their 
substitution for the heart of the dead, being inclosed in 
the wrappings of the mummy. 

The subject of the religion of the Egyptians constitutes 
a field too broad to be covered short of a whole series of 
lectures. It has simply been my object to select from the 
mass some items which may possess a degree of interest 
and which may make a visit to a museum more interest- 
ing and intelligible. 



VIII 

THE RELIGION OF THE EARLY TEUTONS 1 

By Professor Frederick H. Wilkens 

Associate Professor of German, New York University. 

A presentation of the subject of Primitive Teutonic 
Religion is attended with considerable difficulties. The 
religion of the early Germans belongs to a more primitive 
type than any other religion treated in this work. It 
has left no trace. The spiritual as well as the dogmatic 
elements of the religious life of the Germanic peoples of 
to-day are derived from the Orient, from Judaism and 

1 It is impossible to give here a bibliography of the mass of special 
research that must form, directly or indirectly, the basis of even a short 
presentation of the subject. I refer simply to the best modern treatise 
of the subject in English, Professor B. J. Vos's translation of Chantepie 
de la Saussaye, The Religion of the Teutons, Boston, Ginn & Co., 1902. 
A recent authoritative treatment in German is E. Mogk, Germanische 
Mythologie, Strassburg, 1907. A smaller work by the same author and 
having the same title, published in the ' Sammlung Goeschen,' Leipzig, 
1906, gives a popular treatment of the subject. Tacitus' Germania may 
be studied in the scholarly edition of Professor A. Gudeman, Boston, 
Allyn & Bacon. Norse Mythology has been treated in numerous works, 
to suit the taste of every class of readers, especially since the subject 
became popularized through Richard Wagner's great trilogy, the Ring 
of the Nibelungs. A work interesting to the serious student is The Elder 
or Poetic Edda, Part I, The Mythological Poems, edited and translated 
with Introduction and Notes by Olive Bray, London, 1908. 

No consideration has been given in this lecture to the lower levels of 
Germanic Mythology, such as belief in elfs, dwarfs, giants, ghosts, night- 
mares and their various derivatives. Interesting as these may be not 
only to the student of religions but also to the folk-lorist, the student of 
literature, and even the general reader, they lie aside too far from the 
main interest of this course of lectures to warrant treatment. 

IOO 



RELIGION OF THE EARLY TEUTONS 101 

Christianity. The primitive Germanic religion is like a 
primeval forest whose rude grandeur has been laid low 
by the blows of the axe to make room for a more useful 
growth. Besides our information on the subject is 
scanty. 

It would be a defect, however, in the general plan of 
the work if a consideration of the Teutonic religion had 
been omitted. For in this religion we have the primi- 
tive religion of the people of the United States as cer- 
tainly as their language and civilization are derived from 
England, and as certainly as the Anglo-Saxons came 
from Germany to England. It was the ancestral religion 
of the Germans, the Dutch, the Swedes, Norwegians, and 
Danes who have made the United States their home dur- 
ing several centuries of national growth, infusing the 
blood of other Germanic races than the Anglo-Saxon. 
It is well to keep in mind that the English, and by infer- 
ence the people of the United States, have the same claim 
to Teutonic mythology as the Germans of the Continent. 

The fact has already been referred to that we have 
little information on our subject. No copious inscrip- 
tions, no sacred books, such as we possess for the Orien- 
tal religions, tell us of the beliefs of the ancient Teutons. 
No such inscriptions or books ever existed. It is true 
that in the last refuge of heathen belief, in the most dis- 
tant region reached by a Germanic people during the 
Middle Ages, in bleak and inhospitable Iceland, the 
forms of Germanic mythology loom up in gigantic gran- 
deur. The collection of poems known as the Poetic Edda 
is a unique monument, in its way, of Germanic antiquity. 
At one time the tendency prevailed to treat these Ice- 
landic myths of the eighth and following centuries as 
veritable monuments of primitive Germanic conditions. 
Modern scholarship is more sceptical and finds in them 
much that is specifically Norse, and regards them as a 



102 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

blending of ancient mythological conceptions and poetic 
fancy. But even so, Norse mythological literature is 
not only the richest quantitatively, it is also the only 
means we have of endowing with life and blood the 
rather shadowy and indistinct forms of the ancient gods 
of the southern Germans. 

The ancient Germans and their country do not appear 
with any distinctness in the light of history before the 
time when the Romans came in contact with them. 
Caesar, in his conquest of Gaul, 58-51 b.c, clashed with 
the German tribes that were neighbors of the Gauls and 
even crossed the Rhine twice. He reports little about 
their religious beliefs in his account of the Gallic War, 
and this little does not harmonize with what we know 
from other sources. But several generations later, in 
the year 98 after Christ, the great historian Tacitus wrote 
a work on the Germans and their country which is justly 
considered the noblest monument of Germanic antiquity. 
In this work known generally under the title " Germania " 
Tacitus makes some statements about the gods wor- 
shiped by the Germans. The information contained in the 
" Germania " is supplemented by information in the his- 
torical works of Tacitus himself and other authors, Greek 
and Roman, who had occasion to refer to the Germans, 
that fought Rome as equal foes and finally, breaking 
through the barriers, swept in constantly repeated waves 
over the vast extent of the Empire. Names of deities 
also occur in Latin inscriptions on altars and votive 
stones erected by German soldiers serving in the Roman 
army or by Germans living under Roman rule on the 
left bank of the Rhine. Some information is also fur- 
nished later by Christian writers who, in attacking the 
hated pagan beliefs, give us a glimpse of them. Finally, 
popular traditions and superstitions which have per- 



RELIGION OF THE EARLY TEUTONS 103 

sisted through centuries, often to the present day, may 
afford astonishing revelations of very ancient belief. 

From these sources just mentioned we discover that 
the ancient Germans worshiped in particular three gods, 
whom the Romans identified with their gods, Mars, 
Mercury, and Hercules. Such identifications were made 
on the basis of slight and superficial similarities so that 
these Roman designations, taken by themselves, would not 
advance our knowledge very materially. Now it is a 
singular fact, considering the obscurity that surrounds 
questions of Germanic mythology, that the interpretation 
can be given on the basis of information readily access- 
ible to every one. At some time of the Christian Era, 
possibly at the end of the third century, the Roman week 
of seven days was introduced among the Germans. In 
accepting it they substituted their own gods for the 
Roman deities whose names entered into the designation 
of the various days. These Germanic names of the days 
of the week have been generally preserved in languages 
of Germanic stock. Taking the English for example 
we find that the day of Mars, Latin Martis dies (French 
Mardi), is Tuesday, Anglo-Saxon Tiwesdaeg, while the 
day of Mercury, Latin Mercuris dies (French Mer- 
credi), is Wednesday, Anglo-Saxon Wodenesdaeg. We 
thus discover that the Mars of the Germans is the 
god Anglo-Saxon Tiw, Old High German Ziu (Primi- 
tive Germanic Tiwaz or Tiuz), while Mercury is Anglo- 
Saxon Woden, Old High German Wotan (Primitive 
Germanic Wodanaz). The third god, Hercules, does 
not occur in the list of the Roman days. But there can 
be little doubt that the Hercules of Tacitus is identical 
with Anglo-Saxon Thunor, Old High German Donar 
(Primitive Germanic Thunaraz), all forms of English 
" thunder ' and clearly indicating a god of thunder. His 
name survives in Thursday, Old High German Donar- 



104 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

estac, Modern High German Donnerstag. This word 
is the Germanic rendering of the Latin Jovis dies (French 
jeudi), and at a later period than that of Tacitus Thunor 
is directly identified with Jove, for both wield the 
thunderbolt. Tacitus and other early writers seem to 
have hesitated to identify a Germanic deity with the 
supreme god of the Greeks and Romans, while at a later 
period, when Christianity prevailed, such an identifica- 
tion would be made without hesitation. Tacitus identi- 
fied Thunor with Hercules, as far as we can see, because 
both had in common extraordinary strength; and as 
Hercules carried a club so Thunor wielded against his 
enemies a hammer of irresistible force. 

We have dwelt at some length on the significance of 
the names of the week days. They are the most striking 
survivals we possess at the present day of our ancestral 
beliefs. 

Among the three principal deities of the Germans Tiw 
has perhaps a claim on our attention before the others. 
The name is identical with or closely related to that 
of the god of heaven in a number of cognate languages, 
the Sanskrit Dyaus, the Greek Zeu?, the Latin Ju-piter. 
The inference is that Tiw was at one time a god of heaven 
and brightness. In Norse mythology this god has been 
relegated to a position of comparative insignificance, 
but traces of his ancient dignity are perceptible. At the 
time of Tacitus Tiw had become, as we would naturally 
infer from his identification with Mars, a god of war. 
This change must have taken place when the Germans 
developed those warlike qualities that made them a 
feared enemy of their Celtic neighbors to the west and 
south, long before the Roman power extended to the 
Rhine. 

In Chapter 39 of his " Germania " Tacitus gives an 
account of the worship of a god whose name he does not 



RELIGION OF THE EARLY TEUTONS 105 

mention. It is believed on good grounds that this god 
was Tiw. He tells us that the Semnones, a tribe of the 
Swebi (dwelling at this time in the region where now 
stands the capital of the German Empire), were accus- 
tomed to celebrate a religious festival of peculiar solem- 
nity. At a fixed time delegates of all the tribes 
related by blood to the Semnones, that is all or part of 
the Swebi, met in a sacred grove. The god that dwelt 
there was considered the founder of the race and supreme 
ruler of all things. The celebration opened with a 
barbarous practice; a human being was publicly sacri- 
ficed to the god. Another custom proclaimed the rever- 
ence in which the god was held. No one entered the 
grove without having his hands tied, proclaiming him- 
self in this fashion to be the servant of the god. If he 
should stumble and fall to the ground he dare not rise 
again but must leave the grove by rolling along the 
ground. 

Tacitus is an author who molds and fashions with 
a truly imperial temper the materials entering into his 
works, and his interests and those of his contemporaries 
were not in any way identical with ours. We do not 
receive all the information we desire, nor do we receive, 
what is vouchsafed to us, always in the form in which 
we would prefer it. But in his description of the wor- 
ship of the Semnones, Tacitus succeeds in making us 
feel something of the spirit of awe and reverence that 
dwells in the forest sanctuary of the god. At all times 
during their history and even to-day the Germans feel 
a sentimental love for the forest which no other nation 
knows. We imagine that no temple, no conspicuous 
image stood between the god and his worshipers. At 
most a rude idol — Tacitus explicitly denies that the 
Germans had images of their gods, — or some symbol, 
or the effigy of an animal, impersonated the god or re- 



106 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

minded of him. It is possible that the sword was 
sacred to Tiw; the worship of the sword is expressly 
attested for one of the tribes of the Swebi. It is not 
necessary to point out how appropriate this symbol 
would be for a god of war. Tacitus speaks of the god 
of the Semnones as the ruler of all things. Modern 
scholarship would like to discover' here a trace of the 
ancient dignity of Tiw as god of heaven, not as mere 
god of war. It is doubtful, however, whether Tacitus 
or the source from which he derived his information 
had any real insight into the nature of the god. 

We are not in a position to deny the practice of human 
sacrifices among the ancient Germans. Incontrovertible 
evidence establishes the fact for the time preceding and 
following Tacitus, especially in connection with victories 
gained. Woden and Thunor as well as Tiw were re- 
cipients of such sacrifices, all the three principal gods 
of the Germans being essentially gods of war. Human 
sacrifices are a characteristic of certain lower stages of 
religious development and this practice, so abhorrent 
to our feeling, should be judged in the light of this 
general consideration. 

The god Thunor, after whom Thursday was named, 
was called Thor in Iceland and Norway. In these coun- 
tries he was the most popular of the gods. Perhaps 
owing to this popular character there is something real 
and convincing about Thor, as if he were a historical 
personage that really trod this earth at some time: A 
long red beard framed his face, and with his powerful 
arm he wielded the hammer that brought destruction 
to the giants and other enemies of the gods. We fail 
to obtain any such clear vision of the Thunor of the 
early Germans. Like the Norse Thor, he seems to have 
been bearded and he undoubtedly carried that primitive 
weapon, the hammer. We surmise that to him, too, be- 



RELIGION OF THE EARLY TEUTONS 107 

longed some of the popularity that attaches to physical 
strength, when employed in the service of a good cause. 
According to Tacitus, the Germans on going into battle 
sang songs in his praise, as the strongest of all beings. 
Like the other German gods he was worshiped in 
groves, and trees were sacred to him. How tenaciously 
the people clung to the worship of Thunor is proved 
by an incident in the life of Saint Boniface, the Anglo- 
Saxon apostle of Christianity in Germany, who lived in 
the first half of the eighth century. In Hessia, which 
was largely Christian, at least nominally, an enormous 
oak of great age was the object of worship as being 
sacred to Thunor. Boniface caused it to be felled and 
proved that the god was powerless to revenge the in- 
dignity. A generation or two later the continental 
Saxons, who until then had been heathen, were forced 
by the victorious Charlemagne to abjure the worship 
of 'Thunor/ 'Woden' and 'Saxnot* (apparently 
another name for Tiw). We see Thunor is mentioned 
in the first place. Among the Anglo-Saxons of England 
we find fewer traces of his worship. 

The god whom the Romans called Mercury, the Anglo- 
Saxons Woden, is possibly more familiar to the general 
reader than Tiw and Thunor. Those who are acquainted 
with the rich and poetic Norse mythology will feel 
tempted to transfer to the Woden of the southern Teutons 
the lofty conception of the northern god (Norse Odin), 
a great and wise though not perfect head of the Norse 
Olympus. This view was indeed held by eminent author- 
ities in past generations. Modern scholarship has come 
to the conclusion that Woden did not originally hold 
any such exalted position. It is suspected that the 
development of the Woden worship took place under the 
influence of the more civilized Celtic neighbors of Gaul, 
or of the Romans. The similarity between the religious 



108 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

conceptions of the Germans and the Celts is often sur- 
prising. But even if we should not assume a direct 
influence of Celtic or Roman religion on the Woden 
worship, still the influence of the higher civilization of 
the West and the South would naturally quicken the 
development of religious ideas. At Tacitus' time the 
worship of the god had already assumed great impor- 
tance, and in one passage Tacitus mentions him as highly 
revered by the Germans, if not their most important 
god. It seems that his worship first attained importance 
among the tribes of northwestern Germany. 

It is generally accepted that Woden was originally 
a god or demon of the wind and tempest. This is an 
inference based primarily on an examination of legends 
and superstitions found to-day or in comparatively re- 
cent times among various Germanic peoples. It is 
astonishing what light is thrown on ancient religious 
beliefs by employing this method. In popular tradition 
Woden appears, sometimes under other names, as the 
leader of a specter army that strikes terror to the heart 
of the lonely wanderer as it sweeps by him in the dark 
tempestuous nights of winter. In literature this popular 
superstition is best known in the form of the legend of 
the 'Wild Huntsman/ The 'Wild Huntsman* is 
identical with Woden. 

The specters of Woden's following are the souls of 
the departed. It is a more or less general belief of 
primitive peoples that the soul leaving the body is iden- 
tical with the breath departing at the moment of dis- 
solution. The spirit escapes into the air and inhabits 
it; its presence is detected in the movements of the air, 
in the blasts of the wind and the tempest. The word 
Woden is related by etymology to English wind, Latin 
ventus, so that the word indicates the original nature 
of the god. The fact that Woden was the leader of 



RELIGION OF THE EARLY TEUTONS 109 

spirits may account for his identification with Mercury, 
whose duty it was to conduct souls to the realm of the 
departed; this is, however, not the only similarity be- 
tween Woden and Mercury. The spirits which Woden 
leads must have some place from which they sallied 
forth, and mountains appropriately suggested themselves 
as their home. Mountains named after Woden are 
frequent. It seems that on this basis the Norse poets 
built up their conception of Walhalla, with them no 
longer a gloomy subterranean abode but a resplendent 
hall with all the joys dear to the heart of the Norse 
warrior. We have no right to assume such a conception 
for the southern Germans. 

By a transition, such as we ourselves still make in 
employing figurative language, the god of the storm 
and tempest becomes a god of strife and combat. The 
interests of the Germans of this period were so centered 
on warlike prowess that only a warlike god could hold 
a prominent position in their belief. We are told that 
Hengest and Horsa as well as other rulers of the various 
Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England traced their descent 
back to Woden, and Hengest and Horsa in particular 
were reported to have begun the conquest of Britain 
(A. D. 449.) under the special protection of this god, 
who thus presides as it were over the formation of a 
distinct English nationality. It is particularly stated 
that the Anglo-Saxons worshiped Woden ' victoriae 
causa sive virtutis,' that is as giver of victory and war- 
like valor. 

By a further transition the mobile god of the wind 
and tempest, the inspirer of courage, developed into a 
god of things pertaining to the mind and soul. Here 
particularly we may suspect Celtic or Roman influence, 
more especially that of the Celtic Mercury, whom 
Caesar describes as the inventor of all the arts, the guide 



no UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

and protector of the traveler, the god of gain and com- 
merce. A mythological legend which the Langobards, 
a Germanic tribe that finally settled in Italy, had about 
the origin of their race, shows us Woden distinctly as 
supreme god influencing the fate of his people from on 
high. 

Nothing is so suggestive to the primitive mind of 
highest power as the command of magic, and quite in 
accordance with his general exalted rank in Norse myth- 
ology, Woden appears also among the southern Germans 
as master of magic charms. To show this it will be 
necessary to devote a moment's attention to the most 
interesting monument of German paganism now in ex- 
istence, the so called Merseburg Charms. They are in 
the Old High German dialect. The manuscript in which 
they are preserved was written in the tenth century, 
but the charms are undoubtedly much older. The less 
they may seem to deserve such prominence, owing to 
their shortness, the more the fact will be impressed, how 
little is preserved to us for reconstructing the ancient 
heathen religion. By reason of the greater obscurity 
of the first of the two charms (it is supposed to be 
efficient in breaking fetters) I shall confine myself to 
the second one, which in a simple prose translation, 
taking no note of the alliterative verse of the original, 
is as follows: 

Phol and Wodan were riding to the forest. 

Then the foot of Balder's horse was sprained. 

Then Sinthgunt sang a charm over it and the 
Sun, her sister ; 

Then Frija sang a charm over it and Folia, her 
sister ; 

Then Wodan sang a charm over it as he could 
so well do. 

Whether it be a sprain of the bones, or a sprain 



RELIGION OF THE EARLY TEUTONS in 

of the blood, or a sprain of the limbs. Bone be 
joined to bone, blood to blood, limb to limb, as 
though they be glued. 

These verses inform us that Phol and Wodan once 
rode to the forest, perhaps to the chase, when Balder's 
horse stumbled and sprained its foot. Then Sinthgunt 
and the Sun, her sister, sang charms over it, apparently 
without success. Next Frija and her sister Folia sang 
a charm over it, again apparently without success. 
Finally the incantations are crowned with success when 
Wodan tries his hand. As supreme master of charms 
he proves himself to be in possession of the deepest 
knowledge. We discover here only a weak reflection 
of divine omnipotence, to the pagan or the superstitious 
person reciting these verses Wodan appeared to be a 
great power. 

The charm consists of two parts, first a narrative 
portion, in which we are told of a cure effected by 
Wodan, then follows a formula of curative potency. 
By narrating the first part, Wodan's miraculous cure, the 
atmosphere becomes charged, as it were, with the 
possibility of the recurrence of such a cure. The for- 
mula beginning * whether it be/ perhaps conceived to be 
the exact words used by Wodan, is then supposed to 
bring about the desired result. It is interesting to note 
that there is no request for a direct intercession of the 
god, but with a distinctly pagan attitude a cure is 
sought by a kind of sympathetic influence that is 
established between the special case and the model ac- 
tion of Wodan. 

A number of questions arise in connection with this 
interesting relic of German antiquity. Is the Phol of the 
first line identical with the Balder of the second line? 
Is the Balder here mentioned identical with the beauti- 
ful, luminous god Balder of Norse mythology? Is 



ii2 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

Sinthgunt the Moon? And what significance attaches 
to the personification of the Sun? There is little indica- 
tion that the ancient Germans worshiped any person- 
ifications of the constellations. Such questions may 
hardly engage our attention, as we are limited in time 
and space. Nor can we engage in a discussion how far 
Freya and other Norse gods besides Balder may have 
had counterparts among the gods of the southern 
Germans. We also leave aside a number of inscriptions 
containing, apparently, the names of Germanic deities, 
especially goddesses, because a convincing interpretation 
of their name and functions has not yet been given. Even 
some information furnished by Tacitus may be omitted, 
if the exact meaning or value of it is uncertain. 

But one goddess, whose name occurs in the Merse- 
burg Incantations, namely Frija (Anglo-Saxon Frig, 
Old Norse Frigg), we cannot pass by. The impor- 
tance of this goddess is brought home to us even at the 
present day by the fact that Friday (Latin Veneris dies) 
is named after her. In Norse mythology and in the 
Langobard myth already mentioned she appears as the wife 
of Wodan. While the Merseburg Charms do not men- 
tion her as the wife of Wodan there is no reason to doubt 
that she is so regarded. The name of the goddess meant 
originally " wife," " woman." This name is clearly much 
vaguer than those of the principal male deities, whose 
name announces their original special functions. Now 
even with this specialization it is possible that the three 
gods at some remote time were one. For clearly the thun- 
der and wind belong to the domain of the God of Heaven. 
Thunor is, we may assume, originally Tiw, the God of 
Heaven, manifesting himself in the thunder. Such a 
division of a deity into two or more deities is frequent, 
as well as the merging of two or more deities into one. 
Much greater vagueness will prevail among the deities 



RELIGION OF THE EARLY TEUTONS 113 

of female gender, who represent the benign element 
in nature, the fertility and beneficence of our great 
mother, the Earth. Wherever female deities are men- 
tioned, they may be a similar personification of the 
female principle under a different name. Tacitus gives 
us in his " Germania," chapter 40, a description of the 
worship of a goddess that deserves mention in full be- 
cause it is the most beautiful description we have of a 
pagan Germanic worship. 

After mentioning a number of German tribes dwelling 
on the shore of the Baltic in the regions east and north 
from the mouth of the Elbe river, including the Angles, 
the ancestors of the English, he continues as follows: 
" Nor is there anything noteworthy about these tribes 
except that they worship in common Nerthus, that is 
Mother Earth, and believe that she influences the affairs 
of mankind and is brought out into their midst. There 
is an island in the Ocean with a virgin grove, and in it 
a vehicle covered with a cloth. Only one priest is 
allowed to touch it. He knows when the goddess is 
present in her sanctuary. With due show of veneration 
he accompanies her as in her vehicle drawn by cows 
she moves through the land. There is general rejoicing 
when any place is honored by the presence of the goddess. 
No war is begun, arms are at rest, all iron is hidden 
from sight. Peace then reigns undisturbed and is 
cherished with loving fondness, until the priest brings 
back the goddess, tired of intercourse with mankind, 
to her temple. Then the vehicle and the covering, and 
the goddess herself, if we are willing to believe in her 
existence, are bathed in the secret waters of the lake. 
The slaves who perform the rite are themselves swallowed 
by the waters. Hence a feeling of awful mystery and 
sacred ignorance what that might be which only those 
doomed to die may see." 



ii4 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

It is evident from this beautiful, poetic description 
that Nerthus was a goddess of spring and fertility 
bringing prosperity and happiness to her people. A 
goddess which Tacitus identifies with the Egyptian 
Isis and another goddess Tanfana, whose sanctuary, 
not far from the Rhine in the land of the Marsi, the 
Roman general Germanicus destroyed in the year 14 
after Christ, may have been similar or essentially iden- 
tical at the root with the goddess Nerthus. It is 
largely speculative, too, whether Nerthus is to be identi- 
fied with Frig; and just as speculative is the assumption 
that Nerthus, as Mother Earth, is to be regarded as the 
wife of a god of heaven, possibly Tiw. Such union of 
heaven and earth as man and wife is a mythological 
conception found among many peoples. We need not 
follow these uncertain and indistinct paths any further. 
In spite of all the art — or better by reason of the high 
art — of Tacitus' description of the Nerthus celebration 
we obtain but little real insight into the worship and 
nature of the goddess. 

Before leaving the subject of the Nerthus worship 
attention might be called to an interesting survival of 
ancient times, namely the May-day and the May-queen. 
It would perhaps be going too far to identify the May- 
queen with Nerthus, although this identification has been 
made and there is nothing impossible about it. In any 
case the festival of this Goddess of Spring, Nerthus, and 
the rejoicing of May-day, with its May-queen and May- 
pole and flowers, sprang from the same impulse to greet 
the coming of spring. 

It is doubtful whether the ancient Germans had any 
war goddesses of high rank. In Norse mythology the 
Walkyries play a prominent part. They are warlike 
maidens in the following of Odin, who assist or combat 
warriors, carry the slain to Walhalla and serve them with 



RELIGION OF THE EARLY TEUTONS 115 

food and drink. Belief in such beings seems very old 
though the conception may have been originally more 
primitive. Supernatural women of this type are possibly 
described in the first of the Merseburg Incantations. 
But the Norse Walhalla is not found in the belief of the 
earlier times. The dead dwelt under the ground. Their 
abode was named Anglo-Saxon hell, Old High German 
hella, Modern High German Holle, a word meaning 
apparently " the concealing one." It was not a place 
of punishment for the wicked. The reception of the 
word into Christian religious terminology should be noted 
as another of the few pagan survivals preserved to the 
present day. 

As we approach the end of our lecture we would 
gladly be in a position to give some account of the larger 
aspects and more vital elements of the religion of the 
ancient Germans, its influence on the spiritual and 
practical life. Here, too, we cannot make definite state- 
ments. Their religion was hardly weighed down by an 
excessive burden of dogma or ritual : magistrates or 
kings, if the tribe happened to have a king, may have 
performed the sacrifices and other priestly functions, 
and even if there were special priests among certain 
tribes and at certain periods their power was not inor- 
dinate. It is doubtful whether the primitive Germans 
ever gave an account to themselves how this world of 
ours was created, such as we find in the Norse Edda, 
strongly influenced by Christian conceptions. But they 
seem to have had legends about the origin of their race, 
as we saw in Tacitus' report of the worship of the 
Semnones. The most interesting account preserved of 
such a genealogy is found in chapter two of the " Ger- 
mania," where Tacitus relates that in ancient songs the 
Germans celebrate the earthborn god Tuisto and his son 
Mannus (i.e. English "man"), to whom they assigned 



n6 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

three sons, from whom sprang three large subdivisions of 
the Germans, the Ingvaeones, the Erminones and the 
Istvaeones. That the ideas of the Germans on the sub- 
ject of life after death lacked elevation, has already 
been shown. Now, how far did their religion influence 
their practical life ? Did it help to make them better and 
more moral men? Tacitus finds much to admire in 
the ancient Germans, their fidelity to friends and supe- 
riors, their kind treatment of slaves, their respect for 
women, their life generally in accordance with the 
dictates of nature and morals; this in spite of certain 
vices and excesses. We would gladly believe that some 
relation existed between their virtues and their religious 
beliefs. But we cannot make any definite statement. 
Perhaps the female deities were of a nobler quality, in 
a truly religious sense, than the warlike men-gods. At 
a not very distant time a closer study of the general 
character of primitive religions may furnish us with 
new criteria to interpret our scanty information of the 
primitive Teutonic religion. 

A few facts about the spread of Christianity and the 
disappearance of paganism may close our consideration 
of the subject in hand. Christianity was first accepted 
by certain German tribes in the fourth century. At the 
end of the fifth century the most powerful of the 
German tribes, the Franks, became Christian, while the 
continental Saxons held aloof longest among the south- 
ern Germans. They were forced by the sword of 
Charlemagne to accept Christianity about the year 800. 
Their Anglo-Saxon brethren had adopted the new re- 
ligion two centuries before. Denmark, Norway and 
Sweden followed even later. Iceland officially accepted 
Christianity in the year 1000 of our Lord. This was the 
last episode in the protracted struggle between Chris- 
tianity and Teutonic paganism. 



IX 

THE RELIGION OF ANCIENT GREECE 
By Carleton L. Brownson, Ph.D. 

Dean of the Faculty, College of the City of New York 

Greek mythology has interested the world for more 
than two millenniums; the Greek religion, on the other 
hand, has been seriously studied only within compar- 
atively recent times. I do not mean to say that these 
two terms, Greek mythology and Greek religion, designate 
entirely different things, that the gods of Greek mythol- 
ogy were not also gods of the Greek religion. One must 
note, however, that mythology is related to religion as 
a part to the whole, that a mythology is but one aspect 
of a religion. For every religion has first, a theoretical, 
and secondly, a practical side; first, its ideas, its beliefs, 
whether incorporated in myth or in dogma, and secondly, 
its rites and institutions and ethical teachings. In the 
case of the Greek religion, the first of these two sides, 
the mythological, has so completely engaged the atten- 
tion and fascinated the imagination of all succeeding 
times, that the practical side has been not merely over- 
shadowed, but almost lost to sight. Of course the world's 
judgment of values has been correct; to peoples who had 
embraced Christianity the Greek religion had little to 
offer in the way of moral inspiration and precept; on 
the other hand, the mythology of so gifted a race as the 
Greeks and the poetry and art to which it gave and from 
which it received being have helped to create and then 
to refine our whole civilization. Our greater debt, then, 

117 



n8 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

to the religion of the Greeks is not a strictly religious, 
but an artistic, an aesthetic debt ; it is a debt to one part 
of that religion, its mythology ; and to that mythology, not 
because it is an integral part of a religion, but because 
it is also an integral part of Greek art and literature. 
I assume, however, that at this time we are more inter- 
ested in the other side of the Greek religion, the prac- 
tical, and with this thought in mind I shall lay less stress 
upon the mythological side. I can do this the more 
safely because it is the mythology which is familiar to 
all of us already. 

In the first place, let me recall the fact that the Greek 
religion was a religion of evolution, not of authority, 
a religion whose beliefs and practices were the product 
of a gradual, natural growth, not of a fancied super- 
natural revelation. The Greeks themselves did indeed 
conceive of it as born of the wisdom and genius of 
Homer, born an already matured and complete system, 
just as the Homeric hymn represented Athena as sprung 
fully armed from the head of Zeus. Homer, however, 
was no beginner, whether as poet or as theologian. He 
was heir, rather, to a religion which had already passed 
through centuries of development, from the rude wor- 
ship of the primitive, savage ancestors of the Greeks. 

The nature of this earliest, savage worship can be 
inferred partly from survivals of it in later times, partly 
from the comparative study of religions. One of its 
important elements was the worship of ghosts, the spirits 
of the departed. The spirit was conceived as still dwell- 
ing in the vicinity of his grave, conscious and power- 
ful, ready to punish any desecration, ready also, and 
disposed, to vex his surviving neighbors in various 
ways. Evil, however, as these spirits were, receiving 
a worship of fear, not of love, they could still be made 
useful servants by the acts of the magician. For magic, 



RELIGION OF ANCIENT GREECE 119 

the " medicine " of the American Indian, has been in all 
places and times the handmaid of primitive religion. A 
more developed form of this early spirit worship was 
the worship of deceased ancestors, or, in general, the 
spirits of a family's own dead. Here was a service 
of love and duty. The grave must be protected from 
harm and its tenant honored with offerings of food and 
drink. Not merely honored; for food and drink were 
thought just as necessary to the dead man as they had 
been to him in life. As his needs remained unchanged 
in death, so also did his feelings and powers. He was 
most sensitive to neglect, while on the other hand if due 
offerings were paid, he would and could be of assistance 
to his surviving kindred in all the affairs of life. 

Another form of primitive worship, akin to the first 
of those which I have just mentioned, was the worship 
of the so-called chthonic deities, the demons of the lower 
world, the powers of darkness. These demons were 
everywhere in incredible number. They were almost 
uniformly imagined as malevolent creatures, and their 
influence was felt to the hurt of mankind in a great 
variety of ways. They were not to be propitiated by 
worship in any proper sense of that term, only magic 
would suffice. By magic, however, it was possible not 
only to propitiate or exorcise, but also to command them, 
to employ a demon reduced to subservience against a 
hostile demon or a human enemy. One further point 
deserves particular mention. The primitive Greeks, 
like many other primitive peoples, believed that certain 
of these demons had their dwellings in various natural 
objects, especially stones, trees, birds, and animals; in 
other words, we have here distinct traces of a fetish 
worship. Stones which had fallen from heaven, i.e. 
meteorites, or stones of extraordinary, seemingly arti- 
ficial shapes were in high favor as fetishes; so also 



I20 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

particular kinds of trees and animals, selected for one 
or another reason. 

Still another phase of the primitive religion of the 
Greeks was a worship of the aspects and powers of 
nature, the sky and the sea, the sun and the lightning, 
the winds and the rivers, the dawn and the evening. 
The relative importance of this worship among the 
elements which went to make up the Greek religion is 
not deemed so great at the present day as it was a gen- 
eration and more ago. Then almost every god was a 
nature god, and almost every myth found explanation 
as a nature allegory; but this method of interpretation 
has been found to be uncertain and untrustworthy. Most 
of the Greek deities are too many-sided and most of the 
myths too complex to be explained so simply, by a single 
general principle. At least, however, a very great 
number of both deities and myths include some aspect 
derived from nature and its workings. 

With thus much at hand as the original material of 
Greek belief we see developed in the end a religion of 
poetic beauty, an Olympus inhabited by really divine 
beings in human form, not perfect, it is true, yet alto- 
gether noble as compared with the conceptions of other 
polytheistic peoples. The baser elements of the primitive 
worship seem to have been purged away. Not all of them, 
however, have disappeared entirely. Some have been 
merely overshadowed, others, refined by the spirit of the 
later religion, have been taken up into it. The practice 
of magic, the belief in malevolent ghosts, all the cruder 
sorts of superstition have practically ceased to exist. 
The family cult of the spirits of the dead still continues, 
though for the most part among the lower classes or 
in the more backward districts of the Greek world. In 
a similar way the worship of chthonic demons runs as 
an undercurrent beneath that of the Olympian gods. 



RELIGION OF ANCIENT GREECE 121 

The god, however, continually displaces the demon; at 
a given shrine the nobler worship is superimposed upon 
the baser, and only bits of the old chthonic ritual remain 
to tell the story. The fetish remains, but its meaning 
is forgotten. What was once a fetish stone, at Delphi, 
is now described as marking the center of the earth, and 
the newer, Olympian religion has a legend to explain 
how this center was determined. Another old fetish 
stone has become the Palladium of Troy. The laurel, 
once a favorite fetish, has risen to higher honor as a 
tree sacred to Apollo. 

It would be interesting, if space permitted, to trace 
the progress of this upward evolution. It was really 
an evolution, for the principles of natural selection and 
the survival of the fittest were continually at work. The 
better cults and deities tended to become still better 
and to extend their sway, while the worse lagged behind 
in the race or fell out. The religion of the nation kept 
pace with its advancing civilization. A ruling class of 
cultivated nobles, gradually developed in process of time, 
looked with abhorrence upon the dark, gloomy chthonic 
worship. Meanwhile came the period when epic poetry 
had its rise, and the poets lent their powerful aid to 
the upward movement. The nobles, gathered for some 
festal occasion, made the poet's audience, and the 
matter of his song was taken in part from the old cult 
legends, stories of the demons and their human con- 
querors. Here was an element of the supernatural, 
ready at hand, to set off and magnify in the poet's tale 
the deeds of the ancestors of his hearers. Successive 
generations of poets recast, elaborated, and harmonized 
the old myths, and refined and elevated the old deities. 
Gifted, as they were deemed to be, with supernatural 
inspiration, they found belief when they departed from 
ancient tradition, above all when they glorified a noble 



122 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

patron by tracing his descent back to some of the 
worthier gods and heroes whom they in part had de- 
veloped. For ultimately they could raise some few of the 
old demons to the rank of gods, human in form and hu- 
mane in spirit ; others might be enrolled with the heroes of 
earlier days, still others would serve as foils to the gods, 
become their ministers or the antagonists whom they 
overcome. At the same time, a comparative order and 
system was gradually evolved out of the chaos of an- 
cient myth. So there came into being, by the time and 
with the potent aid of Homer and Hesiod, a kind of 
standard mythology and a national Pantheon, the types 
of the greater gods at least became reasonably fixed 
and protected from change. Surprising variants from 
the standard scheme were still to be found in historic 
times in many parts of Greece. There were towns 
which hardly knew some of the greater deities, or 
which preserved stories about a particular god which 
were utterly inconsistent with the general conception 
of him. Such a condition, however, was entirely 
natural under the circumstances which I have described. 
It is easy to generalize in this way about processes 
of god-making and myth-making. When one attempts 
to analyze and interpret individual myths, the task 
is found in many cases to be extremely difficult. It 
has become clear that no one method of explanation 
will explain all the myths, and that all methods will fail 
in a very great number of them. I have already referred 
to some of the myths which grew out of the partial 
absorption of the chthonic worship by the Olympian; 
I will merely recall here a few others of the easier sort 
as types. A well-known story describes how Persephone, 
daughter of Demeter, the earth-mother, was carried 
off by the god of the lower world, then recovered by 
her mother, but only on the condition of spending a 



RELIGION OF ANCIENT GREECE 123 

part of each year in the realm of Hades. Here is 
manifestly a nature allegory, from the grain which lies 
hidden in the ground during the winter and then comes 
forth to life in the spring. The story of Hermes driving 
off the cattle of Apollo is one of what are called the 
meteorological myths ; Hermes is the wind, driving away 
the clouds, the cattle of the sun-god Apollo. The story 
of the contest between Castor and Pollux on the one 
side and Idas and Lynceus on the other is merely trans- 
lating into myth the traditional enmity of the two states 
which the two pairs of heroes represent, Laconia and 
Messenia; that is, it is a historical myth. Another fre- 
quent type is the myth devised to explain a ritual whose 
meaning had been forgotten. In most cases, however, 
more elements than one enter into the formation of a 
myth, and there results a tangle which is not easy to 
resolve. 

I return to what may be called the orthdox Pantheon, 
as finally developed in the poems of Homer and Hesiod, 
and persisting without very marked changes through the 
historical period. The greater gods dwelt together as 
a family and as a miniature state upon Olympus, along 
with a number of lesser deities, their subordinates or 
even servants. To the Athenians these great gods were 
twelve in number, and the Athenian list corresponded 
very closely to that which might be made up from 
Homer. There was Zeus, the father of gods and men, 
the most universal deity of the Greeks ; he was god of 
the sky, wielder of the lightning, his will was well-nigh 
synonymous with fate; in fact he was very frequently 
conceived as not only supreme, but sole ruler of the 
universe, and his better side was a splendid blending of 
majesty and kindliness. Hera, his sister and wife, was 
queen of the gods, although in Homer power was 
almost her only queenly quality. Athena and Apollo, 



I2 4 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

both children of Zeus, are the noblest of all the Greek 
deities, Apollo the poet and prophet, god of light and 
healing, Athena the virgin goddess of war and wisdom, 
and patroness of Athens. I need not go further, for the 
names and functions of these more important deities are 
familiar to every one. I should perhaps mention two 
comparatively late additions to the Olympian family, 
Dionysus and Heracles. Dionysus was the object of a 
worship which gave the Greeks their drama and which 
is in many ways one of the most interesting things in 
Greek history. Heracles was the one great hero whom 
universal opinion deemed fit to rank with the very gods. 
The vast throng of lesser deities and demigods, who had 
little or no association with Olympus, Pan and the 
Nymphs, the Nereids, Furies, and the rest, deserve only a 
passing mention, although instances are not rare where 
one of them held the position of chief deity to people of 
some particular locality. 

The gods of the Greeks were immortal and ageless. 
They had not existed, however, from the beginning of 
time. Their descent, from primeval matter or powers, 
was described by various theogonies. Their might was 
very great, but not unlimited. They were not omni- 
present, nor are they consistently represented as omni- 
scient. They have often been characterized as glorified 
human beings, with all the virtues and faults, the weak- 
nesses and passions and impulses of mankind. Such 
indeed they were, in the pages of the poets and hence 
in the thought of all the Greeks. And the reason is not 
far to seek: those tales of early times which originated, 
for example, in attempts to portray symbolically the con- 
flicts of the powers of nature or to establish the divine de- 
scent of princely families came down to the Greeks of a 
later day as immoral or unmoral stories of the amours and 
jealousies, the quarreling or double dealing of the gods. 



RELIGION OF ANCIENT GREECE 125 

On the other hand, these Olympians, who had so far sup- 
planted a race of hostile demons, were conceived as 
friendly to man, even benevolent. They proved their 
loving care by granting him material blessings, and by 
offering him, through their oracles, wise counsel and 
moral guidance. The fact that they were of like passions 
with himself, not hopelessly and unapproachably perfect, 
served to bring them closer to him. Their demands upon 
him did not go beyond his natural human strength, nor 
did they grudge him natural human pleasures. So there 
resulted a relation of trustful friendship between gods 
and men which is eminently characteristic of the Greek 
religion. It is illustrated by an Athenian prayer which 
Marcus Aurelius quotes with admiration: Rain, rain, 
dear Zeus, on the fields and plains of the Athenians. 
Yet the gods upheld with a stern hand the moral order 
of the universe, punishing offenses not only against their 
own authority but against human society. The wicked 
might flourish for a time, but ultimately the gods would 
find him out, and often visit his iniquities upon his 
children to the third and fourth generation. " The mills 
of the gods grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small " 
is a literal translation of an old Greek line. 

A man's duties to the gods were comparatively simple. 
He did not go to church or listen to sermons. The 
Greek temple was not a church, but the dwelling-place 
of the god's statue, which was the dwelling-place of the 
god; the priest was not a preacher nor a spiritual ad- 
viser. Religious societies, in our sense of the term, can 
hardly be said to have existed. Every one was expected, 
however, to do homage to the gods by sacrifice and 
prayer. His sacrifice was seldom an humble and a contrite 
heart. It might be a donatory sacrifice, offering to the 
gods as their reasonable service a share of the best that 
he had ; it might be a sacrifice of atonement or purifica- 



126 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

tion ; but the spirit of it was not always a very high one. 
The donatory offering was apt to be regarded as giving 
the worshiper a counter claim upon the god, the sin offer- 
ing as a means of escaping punishment, not of cleans- 
ing oneself from moral guilt. Prayer also was usually 
a seeking for specific worldly benefits rather than for 
spiritual light and betterment. One asked of the gods 
success in a given undertaking, a safe return from a pro- 
jected voyage, health or riches, not forgiveness of sins 
or deliverance from temptation. 

But let us be just to the Greek. If he was wont to ask 
the gods for worldly gifts only, it was for two most im- 
portant reasons: first, uprightness of life was in his 
thought a duty which he owed to himself .and to the 
state, and a duty which he should and could perform 
for himself, without asking for external aid; secondly, 
there was nothing beyond earthly favors that he could 
expect from the gods as a reward for piety, — he did 
not expect from them the gift of eternal happiness in 
a life after death. I shall return again to the first of 
these two points ; to consider now the second. The Greek 
was indeed taught by Homer that men continued to exist 
after death, but it was only a shadowy, vague half-exist- 
ence. Better to be a poor laborer on earth than king 
in the dark, vacant realm of spirits. Further, Homer 
agreed with the skeptical Preacher of the Old Testament 
not only that " the dead know not anything," but also 
that " all go unto one place." There might be such a 
thing as punishment for extraordinary sin against the 
gods, but no rewards for the upright and the pious. And 
this remained the normal conception among the Greeks 
of the world to come. Now and then a voice is heard, 
like that of Pindar, promising eternal bliss to those 
who should deserve it. The great cult of the Eleusinian 
Mysteries, probably under Orphic influence, held out 



RELIGION OF ANCIENT GREECE 127 

similar promises to the initiated. Among the philos- 
ophers, Plato was the first to teach a real immortality 
of the soul, and many who came after him followed in 
his footsteps. But such doctrines were never a part of 
the normal religion of the Greeks ; they were for the few, 
and took but slight hold upon the masses. 

We come now to a fundamental question: what was 
there in this Olympian religion to hold and influence 
a people so reasonable and intelligent as the Greeks? 
The answer may be given in a word: it was and is the 
religion of art. If the Greek deified reason, he deified 
art also; and it is only by one possessed of artistic 
imagination and comprehension that his religion can be 
fully understood. It was almost entirely the work of 
artists. First, the poets. They not only gave beauty 
of form to old tales, created unchangeable types of god 
and man, and developed a whole body of splendid myth, 
but they also breathed into their mythical world the very 
breath of life, a subjective truth the like of which few 
would be bold enough to seek in any other works of 
human genius. This plain world became under their 
hands a universe of beauty, harmonious in all its parts ; 
their Olympus supplied what the real lacked to become 
the ideal, what nature lacked to become art. What the 
poets wrought into the soul of the nation in one way, the 
sculptors did in another. No one, it was said, who had 
seen the Zeus of Pheidias, ever imagined Zeus in any 
other semblance. It is true that art has ever been the 
handmaid of religion; nowhere, however, except in 
Greece her mistress and teacher. To compare Homer 
with Milton, Pheidias with Michelangelo, is to realize the 
truth of this statement. 

But are such poetic and artistic imaginings to mean 
anything to reasonable people? Allow me to answer 
the question by asking another: which part of the Old 



128 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

Testament is it which means most to us, which we should 
least willingly lose ? Should we not say without question, 
the poetry of it, above all the psalms of David ? — " The 
heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament 
showeth his handiwork. ... In them hath he set a 
tabernacle for the sun, which is as a bridegroom coming 
out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to 
run a race." The whole matter, however, is put much 
more briefly and simply in the first verse of Genesis: 
" In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." 
But the one is poetry, the other plain prose. Take 
another plain prose thought: God cares for his people. 
This, and only this, the great Hebrew poet has translated 
into the splendid imagery of the twenty-third psalm. 
He has added nothing of religious truth, but his psalm 
is enough in itself to carry a man through life, as well 
as through the valley of the shadow of death. We can- 
not afford to despise the poetic in a religion. 

For, to justify my illustration, there is poetry in Homer 
worthy to be compared with David's ; and Homer was in a 
very true sense the bible of the Greek people. Just as our 
ancestors regarded the Old Testament as primarily a book 
of moral teaching, whose every part might be used for 
instruction in righteousness, so the Greeks regarded the 
poems of Homer. The more thoughtful of our ancestors 
found much to question and wonder at in the Old Testa- 
ment; the thoughtful Greeks of earlier times must have 
found much more to question and wonder at in Homer. 
But the difference was one of degree, not of kind, and 
at least it cannot seem to us wholly strange that Homer 
was made to serve such a purpose. Be our judgment 
what it may be, let us give due weight to the fact, — 
that Homer was taught to Greek children in their schools, 
that his types of piety as of bravery, his conceptions 
of the gods, his pictures of religious usages were stamped 



RELIGION OF ANCIENT GREECE 129 

upon every mind. Here we have, therefore, definite 
moral and religious instruction on the one hand, and on 
the other a means to insure and continue the sway of the 
religion of art. 

It remains, however, to impose the ultimate test: did 
this religion make men better and happier? Such at 
least was not its primary or conscious aim, such an aim 
was read into it, rather, by the higher moral feeling of 
the later Greeks. But the poet and the sculptor are not 
primarily moral teachers, even though their conceptions 
may be grand and elevating. It was grand and elevating 
to feel oneself a part of an ideally ordered universe, in 
which the right normally prevailed over the wrong, whose 
gods in general frowned upon the wicked and looked 
with favor upon the righteous, in which the individual 
might face his fate with equanimity, unafraid of any- 
thing which the laws of the universe might bring to pass. 
But these are thoughts for one's higher moments; one 
craves also for safeguards and comforts in the ordinary 
affairs of day-to-day life; and these, it must be said, the 
Greek religion did not supply. It was in himself, in 
his own strength of character, that the Greek must find 
comfort in trouble and courage to meet what might 
come after death. Nevertheless he did not say "let us 
eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." His morality in 
fact was better than his religion. While we are striving 
continually to bring our standard of conduct up to our 
religion, the contemporaries of Pericles and Euripides 
were striving to bring their religion up to their standard 
of conduct. By compelling Homer to yield them moral 
lessons, by making their whole system of education 
ethical rather than intellectual, by the law of the land, 
they forced a higher morality upon a passive or even 
unwilling religion. In fine, morality was a social rather 
than a religious virtue, a duty which one owed to his 



130 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

family, his fellow-citizens and the state rather than to 
the gods. So we have the extraordinary combination 
of a religion immeasurably inferior to Christianity and 
a morality which an English writer of to-day has char- 
acterized as " approaching the best type of modern 
Christianity." 

I have said that the Greek deified reason. In the 
progress of civilization reason came to be more and more 
a supreme god, and it was not slow to attack its rivals, 
the gods of Homer. The scientific spirit was not satis- 
fied to be told that Zeus sent the rain and Poseidon the 
earthquake; it asked after the antecedent natural causes 
of rain and earthquakes. A still higher spirit of reason 
maintained " if the gods do aught that is base, they are 
not gods." On two sides, therefore, the traditional re- 
ligion was assailed, and at a comparatively early period 
in Greek history. We have first, what Plato calls the 
old conflict between religion and science, — it is really 
old, one sees, — and secondly, the equally old protest of 
the ethical sense against immorality in art, here an im- 
morality which was inseparably interwoven with a re- 
ligious system. So far as the poets' tales were taken liter- 
ally, they were declared to be immoral; so far as they 
were understood to be allegories, based upon natural 
phenomena, — for this method of interpretation was de- 
vised at a very early period, — men turned away from the 
personal gods and back to a study of the natural forces 
which they represented. It was a dilemma from which no 
one could escape, unless he allowed the influence of old 
tradition and the aesthetic sense to quiet the questionings 
of his reason. In a word, the nation had outgrown its 
religion. Of course different people met the situation in 
different ways. All the attitudes which men take toward 
religion in our own day were to be found in the Athens 
of the fifth and fourth centuries before Christ; there 



RELIGION OF ANCIENT GREECE 131 

were the pronounced skeptics, the doubters, the indiffer- 
ent, and the fanatical believers who could tolerate the 
worst things in the ancient faith. The skeptics naturally 
turned to monotheism, and the belief in monotheism 
increased throughout the whole course of Greek history. 
Ultimately the old religion, abandoned by thinking men, 
revenged itself by imposing upon the lower classes an 
ever more scrupulous observance of outworn and mean- 
ingless forms and ceremonies. So, at the end of a long 
period of decline, St. Paul could fairly charge the men 
of Athens with being in all things too superstitious. 

In closing, I wish to speak briefly of Greek philos- 
ophy. No doubt philosophy and religion are different 
things, but the line of division between the two is often 
a very fine one ; and certainly it was in the philosophy of 
the Greeks rather than in their religion that the highest 
moral ideas and aspirations of the race found expression. 
The early natural philosophers, with their atomic theories, 
their elements and their cosmogonies, do not concern us 
here, although, as I have suggested, their speculations 
brought them into irreconcilable conflict with the national 
religion. With Socrates, however, begins a philosophy 
of ethics. His teachings and those of Plato and the 
Stoics approach very near to the best things of Chris- 
tianity. Socrates, standing before a jury that had con- 
demned him to death on the charge of impiety, was not 
only wthout resentment but without fear, declaring that 
no evil could befall a good man, whether in life or death, 
that God would not fail to care for him. Plato carried 
further the teachings of his master. His god was a 
god of love and a being of perfect goodness; man's 
highest duty was to love him and strive to become like 
him. The old Greek doctrine of doing good to one's 
friends and ill to one's enemies was condemned and 
transformed by Plato just as the corresponding Hebrew 



132 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

doctrine was condemned and transformed by Christ. 
And Plato taught not only that the soul was immortal, 
but that the good man would enjoy in the life after death 
a happiness beyond all comprehension. The great com- 
mandments, therefore, and promises of the New Testa- 
ment are found in Plato. Almost all the fundamental 
teachings of Christ he would have appreciated and 
accepted as corresponding to his own beliefs. It was only 
the infinite tenderness, the all-embracing, pitying, for- 
giving love of the founder of Christianity, that lay be- 
yond his horizon. The thought that a sparrow's fall to 
the ground is noticed by the God of the universe never 
came to Plato. For his religion, as I may fairly call it, 
was primarily a religion of the reason, only secondarily 
of the heart. It was a religion, as he himself understood 
and said, for the few, for those only who were able to 
attain to such conceptions by the light of unaided reason, 
t?ot a religion for the world. Yet it is not strange that 
some of the early Christian fathers at Alexandria, find- 
ing in Plato such doctrines as I have described, should 
have debated among themselves whether he learned his 
wisdom from the Bible or by inspiration of God; not 
strange that a pagan contemporary should have charged 
the evangelists with borrowing from Plato. 

The Stoics were not unworthy successors of Plato. 
Their philosophy was characterized by a moral earnest- 
ness, a contempt for the prizes of this world, a compre- 
hension of human frailty and wickedness, a strong sense 
of duty to one's fellows, and a high conception of the 
happiness of him whom the truth has made free, which 
remind us continually of the New Testament. As a 
historical fact this is easy of explanation; for it is clear 
that the apostle Paul was deeply influenced by the teach- 
ings of the Stoics. A very large part of his sermon at 
Athens was a statement of Stoic doctrines: and when 



RELIGION OF ANCIENT GREECE 133 

he speaks of himself and the other apostles " as sorrow- 
ful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich ; 
as having nothing, yet possessing all things," he is almost 
quoting from the Stoic paradoxes. 

I might go further; for the whole question of the 
influence of Greek philosophy upon the early Christians 
is a most interesting one. Let it suffice, however, to 
sum up in the famous words of Clement of Alexandria: 
" Philosophy to the Greek was the schoolmaster to bring' 
him to Christ." 



X 

THE RELIGION OF THE ANCIENT ROMANS 
By James Chidester Egbert, A.M., Ph.D. 

Professor of Latin, Director of the Summer Session and of Extension 
Teaching, Columbia University 

The Romans offer no exception to the rule that a 
nation's religion is largely influenced by that nation's 
history. Although the inherent character of the religion 
may not experience serious changes, the relation of the 
people to their religion varies with the passing years. If 
conquest brings expansion and foreign elements gain an 
entrance, the religion of the people as a whole passes 
through various phases -which are coincident with the 
changes in their history. This is supremely true of the 
Romans. The characteristics of their early religion per- 
sisted even to the days of the downfall of Rome. This, 
however, does not mean to imply that the primitive reli- 
gion did not lose ground, for its original influence and 
power well-nigh disappeared, and it was maintained with 
something of its old simplicity only among the humblest 
in society and in the retreats of the countryside. 

The ancestors of the Greeks and Romans formed part 
of the same migratory band which in prehistoric days 
passed from Asia along the northern shores of the Medi- 
terranean Sea and sent off delegations into the peninsulas 
of Greece and Italy. Entering Italy they spread over the 
country and across the Apennines, dividing into groups, 
one of which became the people of Latium and the ances- 
tors of the Romans. Then we know of the kingdom of 
Rome, whose history is so interwoven with legend that it 

134 



RELIGION OF ANCIENT ROMANS 135 

is impossible to say where story ends and history begins. 
When the Tarquins, the last of the kings, are driven out, 
Rome becomes a republic and enters upon that marvelous 
period of conquest, first of the neighboring states of 
Italy and, after the Punic wars, of the countries along the 
Mediterranean and of Gaul, Germany and Britain. At 
the beginning of the Christian era an imperial govern- 
ment which was to last until the downfall of Rome had 
already been established. 

Of course it is impossible for us to speak with any 
definiteness of the religion of the Romans of pre-historic 
days. We may assume that it was similar to that of the 
primitive people of Italy, and that this in turn was based 
on the religious beliefs which were shared by the people 
who went down into the Greek peninsula. In recent days 
anthropology has thrown considerable light on this sub- 
ject and has taught us that the mind of primitive peoples 
conceived of spirits which belonged to everything mate- 
rial or immaterial. Each thing possessed a spirit which 
was identical with it and controlled it for good or ill. 
These sprits at first had no individuality but finally re- 
ceived a name and assumed a personality and a form like 
that of humankind. This belief of primitive people is 
known as animism. It is unquestionably the basis of the 
religion of the Greeks and Romans. Nevertheless, the 
religion of the latter developed in a different way from 
that of the former. 

The Roman belief, although starting with abstraction 
and personification of deities, never went further, and 
did not become idealistic as did the Greek religion, which 
individualzed these deities so as to produce a mythology 
and mystical worship and forms of beauty and poetic 
idealism which gave an incentive to their art and litera- 
ture. The Romans, however, never went beyond the ab- 
stract and hence there is not the same individualizing of 



136 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

their divinities so that they could act as human beings and 
marry and have descendants — and there was in con- 
sequence no native mythology. The Roman religion 
lacked, therefore, the spiritual element and became an 
intensely practical matter. Thus they arranged their 
gods in classes so that they could readily be appropriated 
in the different departments of life and could be con- 
veniently worshiped as necessity arose. Notwithstanding 
the lack of the spiritual element, they certainly felt the 
necessity of coming in contact wth superior beings who 
were important enough to demand some recognition or 
punish when not recognized. The relation of the people 
to their gods was one of agreement, in other words, a 
form of contract. Thus the vows, which a man made, 
assured the divinity that he would do certain acts and 
make certain offerings if the divinity would show him 
favor. These ideas were the basis of the system of ex- 
votos or gifts offered in fulfillment of vows. Cures were 
acknowledged by offerings of treasures, gold or silver, or 
often terra cotta representations of the part healed. 
Their relation to the gods was, therefore, formal and 
admitted of the establishment of a legal religious code, 
and the observance of religious rites approximated the 
observance of law. For practical purposes this was all 
placed under the control of an important body of relig- 
ious officials, who therefore possessed great power. A 
religion of this character becomes a mainstay of the state 
though it has little to do with the inner life. The acts of 
religion, lacking as they were in true spiritual feeling, 
were nevertheless carried out with regularity and form- 
ality, side by side with civic duties, and served therefore 
as a bulwark to the government. Such a religion as this 
cannot bring peace to the guilty and relief to the hearts 
oppressed by sin and sorrow, for the gods are simply 
powers and not persons. Can we wonder that the religion 



RELIGION OF ANCIENT ROMANS 137 

of the Christ met with so hearty a reception, especially 
among the common people, for it possesses to the full 
all that the Roman religion lacked? 

The theory founded by anthropology and known as 
animism, explains the origin of certain of the many gods 
at Rome, — at least it makes clear why there were so 
many. For the belief that everything has a spirit corre- 
sponding to it leads to a multiplicity of gods. St. Augus- 
tine, in his " City of God," writing in the fourth century 
A.D., exclaims : " When can I ever mention in one pas- 
sage of this book all the names of gods and goddesses 
which they have scarcely been able to compass in great 
volumes, seeing that they allot to every individual thing 
the special function of some divinity." For every man 
there was a Genius, for every woman a Juno, who served 
as guardian spirits. So in nature; the dome of Heaven, 
the springs, trees, and stones of earth, were all provided 
with corresponding deities. Then there was a divinity of 
children's eating, educa, of their drinking, potina, of sleep- 
ing, cuba, of going out, abeona, of returning, adeona, a. 
divinity of a child's first cry, vatic anus, of its first word, 
fabulinus; and so in every department of life ad infinitum. 
It is important to note that the existence of each divinity 
was limited to the period of the existence of the thing 
itself. 

So new divinities were continually coming into being as 
others were continually passing out of existence. The 
Romans believed that all this was true of other peoples 
and they accepted the divinities of other cities and towns 
and were willing to admit them to the circle of their gods. 
This broad view had much to do with the history of the 
Roman religion, for it tended to the admission of the 
beliefs of others and afforded an opportunity for making 
an impression on their people. Altogether there existed 
the possibility of innumerable divinities, so numerous in 



138 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

fact that it became necessary for a person to limit himself 
to those which represented the department in life in which 
he was interested. It was of course impossible to give 
names to all, and from this circumstance arose the 
formula : " Be thou god or goddess," which is found on 
altars, and the phrase " To the unknown god," which is 
quoted by St. Paul on Mars Hill. 

As it is possible to obtain a knowledge of the divinities 
of the kingly period we may study the religion of Rome 
as it existed before it came into contact with Greek 
influence. Fortunately there have been preserved in 
stone, dating in the time of Julius Caesar, lists of religious 
festivals which are given in connection with the Fasti or 
calendars, and which in fact go to make up the larger 
part of these calendars. These inscriptions, written not 
later than 42 A. D., give details which reach back to the 
time of Numa and therefore belong to the religion 
regularly ascribed to that king as the author. 

We have shown above that the Romans did not 
emphasize the personality of their divinities to any de- 
gree. They therefore rather dwelt upon the ritual and 
routine necessary for the recognition and perpetuation 
of their gods. Hence the importance of these festivals 
in the study of the Roman religion, for they give us in- 
formation as to their deities, but, what is still more im- 
portant, as to religious ceremonials in which they were 
worshiped. These are described by Mr. Ward Fowler, 
in his " Roman Festivals," as consisting in the main of 
" sacrifices of different kinds conducted with endless but 
ordered variety of detail, of prayers, processions and fes- 
tivities, the object of which was either to obtain practical 
results, to discover the will of the gods, or to rejoice 
with the divine inhabitants of the city over the prosper- 
ous event of some undertaking." 

We cannot expect to find all the festivals inscribed on 



RELIGION OF ANCIENT ROMANS 139 

the stone calendars as they naturally give simply state 
festivals. Ceremonies of a more private character associ- 
ated with a locality or a family are lacking. It would be 
of little value to enumerate all these festivals. By way 
of illustration I might mention those in honor of Jupiter 
which occur on the days of the full moon, the various 
wine festivals — the Vinalia, on the first of March, and 
the festivals in honor of Mars scattered through the same 
month. On the fifteenth of April there was a festival to 
Tellus, the nourishing earth, on the nineteenth Cerealia, 
in honor of Ceres, the goddess of growth. On December 
seventeenth occurred the Saturnalia, or festival of seed- 
sowing ; and turning to the home, on June ninth the 
Vestalia, in honor of Vesta, the divinity of the hearth. 
It is noticeable that they have largely to do with the life 
of the farmer in the field and home. And so I might con- 
tinue with this calendar, which by a monthly classification 
of festivals indicates in a remarkable way the character 
of the early religion commonly associated with King 
Numa. 

The religion of Rome as observed in the privacy of the 
home, the pietas of the farmer and of the ordinary citizen, 
formed the foundation not only of the religion of the state 
but of the state itself. The gods who grew into the hearts 
of the Romans were those who embodied the ideas of 
home and of home life. The Penates, the guardians of 
the storeroom or provision closet, and the Lar familiaris, 
the tutelary spirit of the family, looked after the well- 
being of the house and its inmates. Every morning the 
pious Roman gathered his dependents and slaves in the 
large middle room, the atrium, which was characteristic 
of the Roman home, and there offered prayers to the 
household gods. The center of the atrium was the hearth, 
the natural altar of the living room, and before the hearth 
stood the table from which the father, wife and children 



140 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

partook of their meals. At midday he shook a part of 
his food into the flames on the hearth, and said a prayer 
that was not far from our " Give us this day our daily 
bread." At the evening meal the slave received the food 
for the divinities and burned it on the rear of the hearth 
and reported if the gods were propitious, and on unusual 
occasions these gods were honored with special sacri- 
fices. With the worship of the Lares were joined that of 
the Genius or the individual divinity of the master of the 
house and that of the divinity of the woman, known as her 
Juno. The Penates, the Lares and the Genius were often 
represented by little statues set in niches or by paintings 
on the walls, and at times by both. Thus in the House 
of the Vetii in Pompeii the Genius of the master is 
depicted on the wall as standing between the two Lares, 
He carries a cornucopia or incense box in his left hand 
and is pouring wine from a bowl with the right. The 
Lares were originally the gods who presided over the 
farms. Each farm had its own Lares at first but after- 
wards they were worshiped in groups or pairs because of 
the number of Lares at the boundary lines of several 
farms. They naturally had their shrines in the farm- 
houses and so became household gods. In Pompeii they 
are pictured as youths clads in short tunics apparently 
dancing. In uplifted hand is a drinking horn from which 
jets of wine fall into a libation bowl held in the other 
hand. At times two serpents were painted beneath the 
figures of the Lares and Penates, strangely indicating 
the Genius of the master and the Juno of the mistress. 
Marriage and its preliminaries were solemnized by 
religious ceremonies which were exceedingly elaborate 
when the bride was fully transferred from the ownership 
and care of her father to the control of her husband. 
Jupiter and Juno and special divinities appropriate to the 
occasion were worshiped. Birth and childhood were 



RELIGION OF ANCIENT ROMANS 141 

marked by the worship of divinities which stood for all 
the period of the child's existence, even the pre-natal be- 
ing remembered. Juno and Hercules were honored for 
the safe delivery of the child, and when he was 
named he was dedicated to Dea Nundina, the ninth day 
divinity, and when he assumed the toga of manhood he 
was assigned to Liber on whose festal day this event took 
place, or to Jupiter Capitolinus as representing the state 
which claimed the allegiance of the young man. The 
cutting of the first beard was attended by a religious fes- 
tival and the crop was dedicated to Fortuna Barba. 
Nero offered the hair of a favorite slave in a golden 
vessel when that slave passed into manhood. Although 
man entered upon life under the care of the gods and 
sacrifice and prayers attended the most important inci- 
dents of his career, we never hear of religious thoughts 
and ceremonies at the bedside of the dying. There 
appears to have been no recognition of the necessity of 
forgiveness in order to be free from guilt when one passes 
to the life beyond the grave. The accounting for deeds 
closes with life and after death there is no hope from the 
favor of the gods. No priest prayed for the welfare of 
the soul. Nevertheless the cult of dead ancestors has 
great importance in family worship. The dead become 
gods and have a claim upon the regard and worship 
of the family to which they once belonged, and which 
must be maintained so as to carry on this worship. They 
became members of a class, the Dei Manes, or kindly 
gods, so named in the hope that they would have a 
friendly spirit toward men. 

In the course of time, as the grave inscriptions show, 
the idea of the personality of these gods increased. They 
were believed to return to earth and to be entertained by 
the members of the family. Among the days on which 
they were remembered and honored with offerings were 



142 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

February 13-21, designated the Parentalia to which our 
All Souls' Day and the Italian tntti morti correspond. On 
the rose day, — Rosalia, and violet day, — Violaria, as on 
our Decoration Day, flowers were offered at the tomb. 
The Manes were believed to be pleased with offerings of 
flowers and to partake of a meal of beans, lentils, eggs 
and bread. This was not an elaborate feast nor was it so 
regarded, as Juvenal shows who refers to a cena feralis, 
funeral dinner, when describing the mean fare of the 
client at the table of his patron. There are many indica- 
tions that the existence of these Dei Manes was regarded 
as similar to that of the living. The grave was made 
in the form of a house, and the early funeral urns were 
miniature huts which give us a knowledge of the primitive 
homes of the primitive people. Inscriptions on the tombs 
and archaeological finds within are further proof of this 
belief, for articles necessary and useful in life were buried 
with the dead, such as implements of war, toys of child- 
hood, jewelry, etc. It is a common fact that we learn 
much of the living by discoveries made in the abodes of 
the dead. 

Let us turn now to the most important of the early 
divinities of the state before we consider those brought 
to Rome by the Greeks. Janus was the god of the 
beginnings ; as he was the divinity of the house-door so he 
presided over the city gate ; likewise he was the deity of 
the opening month, Januarius, of the first of the month, 
and of the early morning. As suggesting the outgoing as 
well as the incoming, he has a double head and looks both 
ways. Jupiter, however, is the god of light and so of the 
day as his name signifies, and is clearly identified with 
the heavens, as the Latin expression sub-Jove, " under the 
skies," indicates. We have said that these divinities were 
powers and not persons. Hence these powers must be 
labeled, so to speak, and much importance attaches to the 



RELIGION OF ANCIENT ROMANS 143 

adjective which indicates the particular phase of power 
referred to. Thus we recognize Jupiter Ferretrius the 
one who strikes or makes treaties, Jupiter Fidius, the 
god of good faith ; and finally the greatest of all, Jupiter 
Optimus Maximus, the representative and protector of 
the Roman state. To his shrine the highest officers of the 
state proceed when assuming office, and triumphs after 
victory were thanksgiving services to this divinity. In 
the time of the empire he became the tutelary divinity of 
the emperor and the imperial house. A willingness to 
sacrifice to him distinguished the pagan from the Christian 
in the infancy of Christianity. 

Juno was the counterpart of Jupiter. She was the 
female representative of the light of heaven and hence 
was the goddess of the moonlight, which was believed to 
have an influence upon the female organism. Juno in her 
different phases was the divinity who was concerned with 
everything relating to women, particularly with marriage 
and child-birth. 

Then there was Mars, who, being the god of the earliest 
month of spring, probably first represented the quickening 
power of new life. He was the guardian of the fields and 
so warded off evil, but he is not in early days the fully 
developed warrior god so familiar to us. Characteristics 
of this kind where his after Greek influence was felt. 
Then there are the divinities of the state corresponding 
to those of the home, Vesta, the Penates, Lares and 
Genius. Silvanus is the woodland spirit, Fannius the 
spirit of fruitfulness and Saturnus the god of sowing. 
These were the deities as presented to us in the calendars 
of the festivals. They preside over the city the boundary 
of which was the pomerium or sacred line, within which 
strange divinities were not allowed to enter. This 
pomerium was in reality the space on either side of the 
wall which was kept vacant under the law. The sanctity 



144 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

of this boundary was observed until the Second Punic 
War, when it lost its significance. 

The newer divinities and cults of a time subsequent to 
Numa owe their origin to the contact of the Romans with 
strangers. The Etruscans, who lived to the north of the 
Tiber, were a race apparently quite distinct from that of 
the Romans. We know nothing as yet of their origin and 
their disappearance is about as mysterious. These people, 
however, had an influence upon the Romans although, 
after all, it was comparatively trifling. In religion, if they 
gave to the Romans the idea of dedicating to divinities 
artistically constructed temples and of represening gods 
in form similar to that of mankind, they themselves had 
already been influenced by the Greeks in this respect. In 
509 B.C., through Etruscan influence, although at the 
close of the dynasty of the Tarquins, the Romans erected 
a temple on the Capitoline Hill to the Etruscan triad, 
Jupiter, Juno and Minerva. The divinity Minerva, old 
Latin " Menerva," thus came into Rome through the 
interposition of the Etruscans. She was the divinity of 
the little Etruscan town of Falerii. We are accustomed, 
however, to identify her with the Greek Athena and in the 
progress of time characteristics of the Greek divinity were 
certainly assigned to her. She was however primarily 
the goddess of handiwork, i. e., of the artisans and 
laborers, and when she first appeared at Rome she was 
not admitted within the sacred line of the city, but was 
given an abode on the Aventine hill. This temple became 
the center of the interests of the artisans of Rome, whose 
great day was the nineteenth of March, on which the 
temples on the Caelian hill and on the Aventine hill had 
been consecrated. She soon assumed such importance as 
to become one of the famous triad worshiped on the 
Capitoline Hill. 

There are two places in Italy which well repay a visit, 



RELIGION OF ANCIENT ROMANS 145 

though travelers often pass them by; one, Mons Tifata, 
which rises picturesquely above the old town of Capua, 
now S. Maria Capua Vetere, and Lake Nemi, the so-called 
mirror of Diana, which is much nearer Rome. These 
places are famous because of the cult of the old Italian 
divinity, Diana. She was the deity of the woods, as her 
name Diana Nemorensis signifies. She cared for natural 
objects, the trees, wild animals, and of nature's produc- 
tions, also for the birth of animals and of children. As 
Roman influences spread toward the south into middle 
Italy, Diana, who had been worshiped in the rude moun- 
tain religions, became of importance and she was accepted 
as a divinity at Rome and honored by temples on the 
Alban Mount and on the Aventine, outside of the 
pomerium, as the cult was that of a strange divinity. 
Diana had much in common with the Greek Artemis and 
she was gradually identified with that divinity. Venus, 
as her name indicates, was a divinity of Italian origin but 
in her earlier history she was the deity of the vegetable 
garden. Strange to say, when she became prominent in 
Rome in the third century B.C., she was identified with 
the Greek Aphrodite and assumed all the characteristics of 
that deity. She was an important divinity in Rome when 
the story of Rome's founding and of the Trojan hero 
Aeneas, her son, was accepted as part of the history of the 
origin of the Roman people. 

We have thus seen how the Etruscans and other peoples 
of Italy added to the Olympus of the Roman religion. All 
this is insignificant compared with both the direct and 
indirect influence of the Greeks. The southern part of 
Italy was so thickly inhabited by Greeks that it was known 
as Magna Graecia ; and tEe Romans soon met these people 
who were in possession of a large part of Italy and early 
felt their influence, especially in their religious life. One 
of the earliest traces of this is the evidence of the accept- 



146 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

ance of the twin brothers, Castor and Pollux, known as 
the Dioscuri, or sons of Jupiter. The cult of Castor early 
established itself at Tusculum in Latium, about twenty- 
five miles from the city, and there becoming thoroughly 
Latinized, was later readily accepted into Rome, being 
admitted within the sacred line, and a temple was erected 
to him where the ruins now stand, in the south corner of 
the Roman Forum. This divinity, with his partner, 
Pollux, was the patron of horsemen and the development 
of this worship was closely allied with the increase and 
modification in the cavalry arm of the Roman forces. 
We all know the story of the appearance of the messen- 
gers, Castor and Pollux, who though divinities, brought 
the news of the battle of Lake Regillus on July 15th. 
They watered their horses, as the story goes, at the spring 
of Juturna, which, it is interesting to note, has been 
recently excavated in the Roman Forum. 

With a history similar to that of Castor and Pollux, the 
cult of Hercules entered Rome at an early period. The 
Greek Heracles, known in Latin as Hercules, was brought 
to Tibur in Latium, about twenty miles from Rome, and 
there became a Latin deity, and as such he afterward was 
welcomed within the city. He came to Rome mainly as 
the deity of travel and trade, and therefore generals and 
traders looked to him for a happy outcome of their under- 
takings. The entrance of such a deity was coincident 
with the turning of the Romans to conquest and trade. 
Attention should be called at this point to two facts which 
are worthy of serious consideration. First, in the de- 
velopment of the Roman religion the new deities that up 
to this time had entered Rome were of the same spirit and 
character as the old and hence their introduction did not 
profoundly affect the religion of the people ; second, what- 
ever modifications took place indicating the development 
of the Roman religion, arose from conditions due to the 



RELIGION OF ANCIENT ROMANS 147 

extension and development of the Roman power through- 
out Italy. 

The religion of the period before the Republic was 
formal and lacked in spiritual enthusiasm, but the next 
epoch, from the beginning of the Republic to the Second 
Punic War witnessed an extraordinary change. This 
change consisted in the gradual breaking down of the old 
conservative religion and the admission of divinities whose 
worship meant an increase in superstition. When Rome 
accepted the worship of Apollo and received the Sibylline 
Books, or in other words, recognized the use of oracles 
and gave ear to them, superstition began its baleful work 
in the religion of the Romans. The second step was the 
worship of Cybele or the great Mother of the Gods and 
the orgiastic rites which belonged to her cult. This 
introduction of the element of superstition may be traced 
to the Greek colony of Cumae on the west coast of Italy, 
a city to which the Romans owed their knowledge of 
letters, weights and measures and of the elements of art. 
From Cumae came the famous Books of the Sibyl. The 
word Sibyl is the Greek Sibulla, meaning female sooth- 
sayer or prophetess. The Sibyls were priestesses who 
dwelt in caves or by springs in various places in Greece 
and Italy, as at Cumae, and served Apollo by making 
known his oracles. The story of how these books 
were brought to Rome is very familiar. Tarquin, after 
repeated refusal to accept the original nine, finally 
received the three that had not been destroyed. This 
of course is a mere legend, and scholars believe that 
the cult of the Sibyl was developed in Rome from 
very small beginnings. It meant the use of or- 
acles which did not have to do with foretelling future 
events but with the setting forth of means whereby the 
angry gods could be appeased after their rage was indi- 
cated by prodigies or by pestilence and earthquakes. The 



148 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

development of this use of oracles was closely associated 
with the new priesthood of two men known as the Duoviri 
Sacris Faciundis, or committee of two for sacrifices. 
These books were placed under the care of this committee, 
in the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, on the 
Capitoline Hill. They were consulted from time to time 
under the direction of the Senate, who in turn arranged 
to carry out the prophetic commands of the Sibyl. The 
close relationship existing between Apollo and the Sibyls 
indicates that the introduction of these books was associ- 
ated with the appearance of this divinity at Rome. He 
was given an abode, however, outside of the sacred line, 
and a temple was built to him after a dreadful pestilence 
in 431 B. C. in the Campus Martius. It was not until the 
time of Augustus that he entered the city, but then he was 
given a temple on the Palatine Hill. These books were 
also responsible for the appearance of other divinities. 
When in 496 Rome was suffering because of the lack of 
grain through the failure of crops and the impossibility 
because of war of securing corn from other parts of Italy, 
she turned to the Sibylline Books and was directed to 
introduce Demeter, Dionysus and Persephone. There- 
upon temples were built on the Circus Maximus to these 
deities under the name of Ceres for Demeter, Liber for 
Dionysus, and Libera for Persephone. The selection of 
these divinities was of course exceedingly appropriate for 
the exigency at hand. The Greek Demeter who distrib- 
utes grain and bread is here allied with Ceres, the old 
Roman patroness of plant life. Dionysus as the god of 
wine is now identified with the Italian Liber, the old god 
of fertility, and Kore, daughter of Demeter, is classed as 
Libera, who is simply the companion of Liber. This 
triad was important because it was associated with the 
supply of grain, for which from this time the Romans 
were compelled to look to foreign lands. The Plebeians or 



RELIGION OF ANCIENT ROMANS 149 

common people had great interest in this matter of cheap 
grain, and* these gods became their deities and the temple 
of these gods became their meeting place. 

Another divinity closely associated with these is 
Mercurius, who represents the Greek Hermes, but in his 
character as the protector of the merchant, and so he is 
the god of trade. His temple dedicated in 495 outside 
the city near the Aventine Hill, was the meeting place of 
the society of traders and merchants. Neptune is another 
divinity who though an early Italian god of unknown 
characteristics took the places of the Greek Poseidon, the 
god of the sea, and entered Rome with the other gods 
of trade. 

We have now seen how in the early days of the 
Republic a number of Greek gods had been introduced 
into the Roman pantheon directly through the influence 
of the oracular books sent from Cumae. This was the 
first step in a very great change, a change which con- 
trolled the tendencies for the centuries that followed. In 
the third century the Roman people suffered the most try- 
ing experience in their history. They engaged in war 
with the Samnites, their neighbors, and then with Pyr- 
rhus, and finally fought in the fearful contest with the 
Carthaginians under Hannibal. In the midst of the dark- 
ness of this fearful ordeal their religious spirit became 
more and more superstitious. The historian Livy 
enumerates the prodigies which seemed to the Romans to 
indicate the wrath of the gods, for he declares that they 
invariably preceded the dreadful defeats inflicted by 
Hannibal. In the vegetable market a six months' old 
baby was heard to cry " triumph " three times. In the 
cattle market an ox made its way to the third story of a 
house and leaped out. There was a shower of stones in 
Picenum. All these were met by expiatory rites. The 
people turned more and more frequently to the oracles, 



150 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

and the Sibylline Books were more freely examined. The 
objections to the introduction of new divinities thereupon 
disappeared, and one and all came over the sacred line into 
the city and took a position alongside of the old gods of 
Rome. But this was not all, for when the Sibylline Books 
were consulted in the hope that some way might be 
suggested for driving Hannibal from the country, they 
responded that the Great Mother of the Gods must be 
brought from Phrygia to Rome. The ready obedience 
indicates the change in the religious spirit of the people. 
Sending a delegation to Phrygia they secured the sacred 
stone which the natives declared to be the mother of the 
gods, and took it to Italy. Here it was received with 
great enthusiasm, and Rome had now adopted a foreign 
divinity and a foreign cult which they believed rightly 
claimed their adherence and gratitude because by reason 
of its presence Hannibal left their shores. They little 
knew, however, that it meant the introduction of incanta- 
tion and orgiastic rites in place of the simple religious 
faith which had been the mainstay of their sturdy gov- 
ernment. They might better have kept Hannibal and 
turned the mother of the gods from their shores. They 
had in a double sense secured a stone for bread. 

We turn now to the history of the religion of Rome in 
the last two centuries of the Republic. Of this period 
it may be said first that the superstitious and the sensa- 
tional prevail widely in the religion of the state, and ye*» 
on the other hand, there appears a skepticism due to the 
introduction of philosophic theories brought to Rome by 
the Greeks. The story of the growth of the former is 
easily told. Rome had broken down the barrier, and now 
admitted Greek deities on the theory that they were 
parallel to Roman divinities, and even where this parallel 
was difficult to establish, the new divinity was admitted 
if the slightest trace of resemblance in ceremonial to a 



RELIGION OF ANCIENT ROMANS 151 

Roman deity could be found. Again the Roman deities 
for whom no counterpart was recognized in the Greek 
Olympus were neglected, and the general effect was a 
disregard of the old and a recognition of the new, 
especially of those calling for extreme devotion and a 
worship of ecstasy. First they gave themselves to the 
worship of Cybele, the mother of the gods, then they 
took part in the revels which marked the cult of the god 
Dionysus or Bacchus, resulting in excesses demanding 
restriction by law, and finally they even turned to 
astrology, which flourished in spite of official antipathy. 
It is a curious fact that superstition and skepticism in- 
creased in Rome in the same period, and it is still more 
curious that skepticism tended to bring the Romans back 
to their sensible old religion, for though the Greek 
philosophy had discredited Roman religion, it tended still 
more to counteract the leaning to the superstitious. 
Lucretius, the great poet of the middle of the first century 
before Christ, was a dogmatic opponent of religion, and 
preached the philosophical creed of Epicurus, but he also 
called upon the Romans to put away false gods and 
superstitions. The result of the introduction of Greek 
philosophy and skepticism was not the absolute destruction 
of religion but rather the reassertion of its power and its 
recognition as a necessity in the life of the state which 
must be maintained although men of intelligence no longer 
had any belief in the religion of their fathers. Neverthe- 
less faith has disappeared and a formal religion of this 
character cannot stem the tide of superstition which 
invades Rome now from the East while the Roman armies 
are invading the lands in which these wild and strange 
religions had their origin. After the Mithridatic War 
Sulla's army brought to Rome the goddess Comana, who 
became identified with the old Italian Bellona. Her 



152 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

devotees indulged in the wildest orgies, dancing and cut- 
ting themselves with knives. 

The cult of the Egyptian deities Isis and Serapis was 
established in Puteoli and at Pompeii before the close of 
the second century B.C., and made its way into Rome 
against fierce opposition when the old religion was decay- 
ing and the popular craving for emotional worship is 
making itself felt. This cult possessed extraordinary 
fascination for the masses ; the slaves, freemen and people 
of lower ranks. The ritual of the worship of Isis was 
marked with great pomp, and the deep feeling aroused 
by the lamentation for lost Osiris and the joy of his res- 
toration appealed to those who never paused to consider 
the ridiculous character of the entire proceeding. Because 
of its popularity it was necessary to give the Isiac cult 
at Rome a place in spite of the opposition of the old 
Roman sentiment. Isis was recognized by Octavianus, 
when triumvir, by the erection of a temple, although she 
was banished beyond the pomerium after the battle of 
Actium. Under the emperors the cult met little opposi- 
tion, and maintained its influence beyond the days when 
the Roman world yielded to Christianity. The oriental 
religion which became the most powerful in drawing to 
itself the devotion of the western world, was that of the 
Persian Mithra. This cult may have entered Rome in the 
days of Julius Caesar, but it was in the imperial period 
after the reign of Tiberius that it began to make headway 
in the capital and then throughout the empire. Dill * has 
said that " It is perhaps the highest and most striking 
example of the last efforts of paganism to reconcile itself 
to the great moral and spiritual movement which was 
setting steadily and with growing momentum toward 
purer conceptions of God, of man's relations to Him and 
of the life to come." Though it seemed to satisfy for a 

1 " Roman Society from Nero, to Marcus Aurelius." 



RELIGION OF ANCIENT ROMANS 153 

time the demand of the world for spiritual light and life, 
it did not ultimately provide what was needed, and it was 
compelled to yield to a religion which would afford a great 
moral ideal set forth by a moral God. 

At the close of the republic, therefore, the old Roman 
religion existed simply in the worship of the family, for 
the state religion had lost its hold through skepticism and 
the common people had turned to the excesses of these 
oriental religions. When Augustus became emperor of 
Rome, with splendid judgment and patriotism he set him- 
self the task of discovering the reason for the condition 
of his people. Why were they not the same as in the 
days of his forefathers? What restorations must take 
place to bring Rome once more into its old condition and 
to recall the old national life? Augustus saw that the 
old spirit of patriotism and the belief that Rome was 
destined to stand forever must be restored. All influences 
were therefore turned in this direction. Statesmanship, 
literarv achievement, all were employed in the great pur- 
pose. Hence we have Virgil's Aeneid with its story of 
the founding of Rome, Horace's Odes and Ovid's Fasti. 
More than all, however, religion must be given its place 
again, and literature and statesmanship must bring this 
to pass. The emperor builds numerous temples, reorgan- 
izes the old priestly colleges such as the Fetiales, who 
looked after treaties and declarations of war, and the 
brotherhood of the Arvales, which dated back to earliest 
days when the priests marched about the fields so as to 
purify the land. The latter was re-established as a tradi- 
tional priesthood, and became of service in the religious 
support of the imperial house. The worship of Vesta was 
honored in a peculiar degree. The Vestals possessed ex- 
traordinary privileges and were treated with marked re- 
spect in public even by the highest officers of the state. 
Last of all we should mention the evident endeavor to 



154 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

offer for worship certain important divinities identified 
with the imperial family. Thus Julius Caesar became a 
divus Julius, which was a very simple adaptation of the 
idea of the Dei Manes who had now become in the Roman 
idea individual deities. He nevertheless encouraged the 
worship of certain favorite divinities of his family, 
Apollo, Vesta, Mars Ultor the Avenger. Finally, the 
genius of the emperor, the Genius Augusti, readily found 
a place as a state divinity because it was associated with 
the Lares at the crossroads and became the object of 
general worship. The East accepted this as the adoration 
of the Emperor, although Augustus objected to the deifi- 
cation of living persons. 

Although the reforms of Augustus and the consequent 
religious revival may not have produced profound religious 
sentiment, it vitalized the old formal religion of the state 
so that it endured almost to the time of the invasion of 
Alaric in 410 a.d. This was, however, purely the re- 
ligion of the state, and the emperors after Augustus 
employed it as a powerful ally in maintaining their sover- 
eignty. With the exception of Nero they loyally sup- 
ported the state religion. Tiberius guarded the priest- 
hood and the Sibylline Books, Claudius revived ancient 
rites of early days, the Flavians and Antonines returned to 
the conservative spirit of Augustus and protected the 
ancient ritual. Nevertheless, private views as to religion 
varied greatly. Tacitus is evidently very weak in his 
faith, and Juvenal joking declares " If men really must 
ask the gods for something and vow entrails at the shrine 
and the sausages of the little white pig, they should pray 
for a sound mind in a sound body." Nevertheless, it 
is a period when gods were being produced particularly 
by apotheosis on every side. Petronius declares that in 
Croton you could more readily come upon a god than on 
a man. Yet the old gods continued to be most prominent 



RELIGION OF ANCIENT ROMANS 155 

and the inscriptions prove that Jupiter, Juno and Minerva, 
Hercules and Silvanus, Mars and Fortuna, are more im- 
portant than ever. But above all Jupiter, now designated 
by many titles, is drawing to himself the adoration of the 
multitude, for the tendency to monotheism makes him 
supreme. In the imperial period the religion of Numa is 
interwoven with the very life of the people. As Dill has 
said, " It penetrated the whole fabric of society ; it digni- 
fied every public function and every act or incident of 
private life. To desert the ancient gods was to cut one- 
self off from Roman society, as the Christians were 
sternly made to feel." 

It was the touch of the distant past associated with the 
glory of Rome that gave to the formal state religion such 
wonderful power even in the fourth century. We know 
there were spiritual longings which such a religion could 
never satisfy. Hence we pity, yet admire as we behold 
the Romans even in these declining days feeling the spell 
of the ancestral religion which is so closely allied to the 
history of the eternal city. 



XI 

JUDAISM: ITS PRINCIPLES AND ITS HOPES 

By Rabbi Rudolph Grossman, D.D. 

Rabbi of Temple Rodeph Sholom, New York City 

When men and women are willing to follow in a spirit 
of respect and good-will the words of those who repre- 
sent faiths and beliefs that differ widely from their own, a 
mighty step forward has been made in the development of 
that true spirit of fair-mindedness and justice that is ulti- 
mately to lead to the unification of the human race ; for I 
contend that back of all the antipathies and animosities, 
behind all the prejudices and the ill-will that unfortunately 
but too often have separated creed from creed, and nation 
from nation, and deluged the earth with the blood of 
innocent victims of hatred, malice and bigotry, stands 
ignorance, — ignorance as to the real character of both 
the man and the faith that are the objects of scorn and 
abuse. 

Once let the divine fiat of creation's morn, " Let there 
be light," resound over all the earth, once let the carica- 
tures that fanaticism and ignorance have drawn, be re- 
placed by the honest portraits that knowledge and truth 
alone can draw, and how quickly will it be found that 
despite all diversity and difference, there beats in all 
human beings the same human heart, aglow with the same 
aspirations, athrill with the same ambitions, — yea, wor- 
shiping, though in different form, the same Father and 
seeking, though by different paths, the same Truth. 

I am speaking as the humble representative of a people 

156 



JUDAISM: ITS PRINCIPLES AND HOPES 157 

that even in this enlightened age is often misjudged and 
even maligned, and of a faith that though the oldest of 
all existing religions, though the mother from whom the 
world has for ages drawn its spiritual nourishment, is 
still to-day frequently misunderstood and misinterpreted, 
and even branded as outworn and outlived. And if in the 
very brief space at my disposal, I may perchance be 
enabled to give correct information as to the principles 
and the hopes of Judaism, and lead any to realize that this 
old faith has still a message for the modern world, a 
message that is big with meaning, I shall be profoundly 
grateful for the opportunity afforded me. 

At the outset let it be understood most clearly that 
when I speak of the Jew, I use that term to connote a 
religionist, the confessor of a distinct religious idea, and 
not a nationalist, clinging to certain political ideas and 
dwelling among the nations somewhat as the Chinese dwell 
among different peoples, always with the hope of return- 
ing some day to their former home. 

Judaism, as I understand it, is not identical with 
Zionism. While the age-long suffering of the Jew, a 
suffering that, alas, is not yet ended, has led many of my 
people to cherish the hope of an ultimate return to 
Palestine, the home of our former glory, and of the re- 
establishment of Israel as a nationality, yet the great 
prophets of Israel, whose disciple I am, have always inter- 
preted Jewish history and Jewish destiny in terms of 
religion and not of nationality. I differ from you only 
in my faith, in what I may call my Jewish " Welt- 
Anschauung " or " Lebens-Anschauung," — that is, in my 
distinctive Jewish philosophy of life and the world. With 
you, I am an American, a loyal, patriotic upholder of this 
land that I, and with me all my people, hail as our home 
now and always, our second and greater Palestine. 

It is not needful for me to point out that in all that 



158 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

concerns American life the Jew has played his part, and, 
I venture to say, has played it honorably; that in war 
or peace, in the domains of industry or of scholarship, in 
the halls of legislation or in the realms of commerce, the 
Jew has contributed his share to the wealth and the weal 
of this nation ; and the same holds true of the German, the 
French or the English Jew. But while we Jews are 
patriotic upholders of the particular flag under whose 
protection we dwell, we at the same time cling with a 
persistency that by some has been glorified as heroic and 
by others has been branded as stubborn, to certain religious 
ideas that have not only marked us off from the world, 
but have made us but too frequently, in consequence, the 
martyr and sufferer of history. It is this that has made the 
Jew the riddle of all the ages. No other people of whom 
history has any record has clung with so vehement a 
persistency to his own peculiar religious ideas as has the 
Jew, and at so tremendous a price. Fire could not con- 
sume nor could water quench the Jewish ardor ; neither 
bribery nor persuasion could induce him to abandon his 
faith. All the world's persecution, all the torture that 
tyranny and cruelty could devise, have been of no avail. 
A people without a country for centuries, a people for 
ages deprived of every human right and opportunity, a 
people for epochs scorned, hated, abused, outcast — and 
yet, the Jew lives. 

And what makes the marvel all the more marvelous is 
the fact, that Israel is not only the oldest of peoples and 
the most persecuted of peoples, but the weakest of peoples, 
— weakest during its dispersion, weakest during the days 
even of its national glory, weakest still to-day, — and yet, 
the Jew lives. Broken columns are all that attest Egypt's 
former glory; Babylon, Assyria, Rome and Athens are 
merely historic echoes ; mighty empires arose and flour- 
ished ; great dynasties came and fell ; mighty religious 



JUDAISM: ITS PRINCIPLES AND HOPES 159 

organizations built gorgeous temples, and they sank into 
ruins ; ages have come and ages have gone, — yet the Jew 
has outlived them all ; the Jew is still young though four 
thousand years have rolled over his head. 

How shall we explain this enigma, this marvelous 
vitality? Shall we say, as do some, that it is due to 
stubbornness ? Surely not, for men do not willingly and 
cheerfully bear suffering and ignominy and torture merely 
at the command of stubbornness. Conviction alone can 
make men ready to do and die for a cause. Or shall we 
say, as some theologians have asserted, that the Jew exists 
because of a supposed curse launched upon him by his 
own brother in faith, and that the Jew shall exist until in 
the fulness of time he shall be cured of his spiritual blind- 
ness by the abandonment of his old faith and the accept- 
ance of a new? Perish that thought! No theologian 
who is honest, will any longer ascribe historic truth to the 
exploded myth of the " Wandering Jew," or will he dare 
to assert that Judaism is nothing more than spiritual 
blindness. Elsewhere must we look if we would explain 
the persistence and insistence of the Jew upon his own 
religious ideas. 

To one who studies the history of mankind with a keen 
and philosophic mind, it must be clear, that the Providence 
that rules the destinies of humanity, has assigned to 
definite nations a definite function, which it is theirs to 
play on the stage of life, and has dowered particular 
individuals and peoples with a particular genius, embodied 
and expressed in their thoughts, ideals and achievements. 
Indeed, we may say that certain individuals and peoples 
appear to be divinely gifted, seem to be appointed, called, 
chosen or, to use the theological term, inspired, to do a 
particular work at a particular time. Thus, we Americans 
love to believe that George Washington and Abraham 



160 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

Lincoln were appointed, called, to proclaim freedom to 
the oppressed and the enslaved. 

Now, this holds true of whole nations as well. Thus, 
for instance, the Greeks were dowered with a genius in 
the direction of art, the Romans in the realm of law and 
political organization; the Anglo-Saxon race stands dis- 
tinguished by the superior ability it has manifested, as 
Emerson has pointed out, in all things where independ- 
ence, self-reliance, and courage are required. Germany 
is unique as being the mother country of modern philos- 
ophy and transcendental idealism. America we believe is 
appointed, called, to bring to the nations the uplifting 
message of self-government, of liberty under law. In 
the same sense we may say that Israel was dowered with 
a genius peculiarly its own, a genius in the direction of 
religion and morals. In worldly matters, in all things 
that appertain to the physical and the mental growth of 
civilization, other nations have far surpassed the achieve- 
ments of the Jew, but in the realm of the spirit Israel is 
master. And this peculiar, distinctive genius of the Jew 
in matters of religion and morals, accounts for the fact 
that to the Jew the world is indebted for those great 
religious and moral principles that lie at the basis of our 
civilization, for not only the highest ideal that the human 
mind has ever conceived, the ideal of one God, the doctrine 
of monotheism, but also the noblest ideals of modern 
ethical aspiration, the ideals of liberty, of justice, -of 
charity, of peace, were first enunciated by the prophets 
and the seers of Israel. 

The Book of books, the moral text-book of the world, 
the book of praise and prayer for young and old, the 
guide to peace here and salvation hereafter, the Bible, 
with its Ten Commandments, the Impregnable Rock upon 
which government, society, law and order are based, — the 
Bible, with its surpassingly beautiful picture of a world 



JUDAISM: ITS PRINCIPLES AND HOPES 161 

of nature and of man at peace, — the Bible, with its Sab- 
bath, the first declaration of independence from degrading 
drudgery and enslaving toil, — the Bible, is the Jew's gift 
to the spiritual wealth of the world. 

And, mark you, all these contributions of the Jew to 
civilization, without which, in fact, civilization could not 
be, came to him, I contend, not as a result of any 
supramundane, mysterious revelation that flashed upon 
him from above, but were evolved out of his own con- 
sciousness, — the expression of his own soul, spun, as it 
were, out of the genius that is in him. When, then, we 
speak of Israel as " the chosen people," let not men curl 
their lips in irony or scorn. When the prophet of old said 
to the Jew, addressing him in the name of Jehovah : " You 
only have I known, among all the peoples of the earth," 
he did not mean, nor do we Jews interpret his words to 
mean, that the Jew is God's favorite, as though upon 
Israel had been conferred a higher patent of blue-blooded 
nobility than upon any other denizen of God's footstool. 
Let the prejudiced and the ignorant accuse the Jew as 
they will of chauvinism and exclusivity, we do not 
arrogate to ourselves any privilege that God has not con- 
ferred in equal measure upon all His other children. 
God did not choose the Jew in the sense of having 
arbitrarily selected him as His mouthpiece or represent- 
ative, but the Jew, if I may so say, chose God as the Ideal 
for his reverent study and worship. " Israel, the chosen 
people," means " Israel, the choosing people," as it has 
recently aptly been termed ; for Judaism, as I understand 
it, is more than a religion, — it is a mission. Judaism we 
define as something more than a mere statement of creeds 
and doctrines; it is a message, a message to the world, 
incarnated in a living church ; for, you will permit me to 
say, as the innermost conviction of my own soul which, 
as an honest man I must express — and, thank God, I may 



162 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

express without fear or hinderance — that the faith I 
represent stands for one ideal, an ideal that is the very 
bone and marrow and sinew of Judaism, an ideal whose 
realization is not yet, though, thank God, we are nearer to 
it than we ever were before, — for all the principles and 
hopes of Judaism, all the ambitions that vitalize the heart 
of the Jew, find expression in one phrase : " The unity 
of God and the unity of mankind." 

It is not needful for me within the compass of this 
lecture, to expatiate upon the many reasons why we Jews 
cannot accept the Nazarene in the sense in which the 
Christian does; though let it be said, and said with 
reverence, that we Jews honor the Nazarene as our brother 
in faith, sprung from our loins, nurtured at Israel's knee, 
a teacher of sweet and beautiful ideals, a preacher whose 
influence has been and still is among the mightiest spirit- 
ualizing factors in all the world. But Judaism's entire 
history is one long protest against any conception of God 
that would seek to embody the deity in human form, how- 
ever perfect may be the mold in which it is cast. 

It is to the eternal glory of Judaism that through the 
genius of its prophets and its seers, it brought to the world 
the fundamental truth of the Oneness of God, expressed 
by the Jew in that which is his watchword in life and 
death, " Hear, O Israel ! The Lord our God ; the Lord is 
one." 

But the Jew did not attempt to define this One God, 
realizing that a God defined is no God ; nor did the Jew 
seek to identify this One God with any dogmatic formula- 
tion of creed, for while the conception of the deity, as the 
Jew pictured him, is transcendingly pure and immeasur- 
ably exalted above human experience and the world of 
nature, on the other hand, the Jew recognized that man's 
conception of God and man's attitude towards Him, ex- 
pressed through worship, symbol or creed, is largely con- 



JUDAISM: ITS PRINCIPLES AND HOPES 163 

ditioned upon the degree of man's knowledge and the 
strength of his spirituality ; and therefore, dogmatism has 
never put a brake upon the Jewish intellect and said 
" This thou mayest believe, and nothing else." 

It is a remarkable fact that heresy trials are unknown 
in Jewish history, for Judaism never fettered the mind and 
never asked the searching thinker to recant discovered 
truth. 

According to the Jewish conception, reason and faith 
are not antagonistic forces, but are rather twin sisters, 
both daughters of heaven, children of light. And, even 
more, Judaism lays greater emphasis upon conviction than 
it does upon belief, upon conduct than it does upon faith. 
The Jewish attitude has never been better expressd than 
in the familiar lines of Tennyson — 

" For forms of faith let graceless zealots fight ; 
He can't be wrong, whose life is in the right." 

Our primary solicitude is not belief but conduct. The 
true test of the worth of a man, according to the Jewish 
standard, is not the faith he calls his own but the manhood 
he displays, — not the dogmas that a man professes or 
disbelieves, not the creeds he repeats or fails to repeat, but 
the life a man lives, the conduct a man shows ; the deeds 
a man does make him beloved of God and assure him 
salvation here and hereafter. 

Now, this is the keynote of Judaism's attitude towards 
other faiths. We have sent no missionaries into the 
world, not because we are not interested in the spread of 
truth, but because Judaism is so broadly tolerant of other 
faiths that it sees in every religion, so long as it can create 
and fashion pure character and righteous conduct, a con- 
secrated child of God, a ray of the divine light of truth. 

It is sometimes said by those who misunderstand my 
religion, that Judaism and the Jew are narrow, exclusive, 



164 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

— that the God of the Old Testament is a tribal deity, 
severe, stern, lacking in those elements of love that win 
the heart. The Jew exclusive ? No, not exclusive, — 
the Jew has been excluded. The Jew narrow? No, not 
narrow, — the hatred of the world narrowed the circum- 
ference in which he could move and live. The God of 
the Old Testament severe and stern, lacking in the ele- 
ments of love? Where will you find a higher conception 
of God's love for all men of whatever creed or country 
they may be, than that which found expression in the 
dictum of the Talmud, " The good of all religions and 
of all nations shall inherit immortality ? " Or in that other, 
even more remarkable, utterance of a Talmudic sage, who 
once said : " What does God demand of His children ? 
Only this : that they love one another ? " Has the human 
mind ever soared unto sublimer heights of world-embrac- 
ing unity than did the prophet Isaiah when he said, in the 
name of Jehovah, " My house shall be a house of prayer 
for all nations ? " Has love ever found sweeter expres- 
sion than in the immortal words that first fell from the 
lips of the old Hebrew prophet, Malachi : " Have we not 
all one Father? Hath not one God created us all? Why 
then shall we deal treacherously one with the other ? " 

Yes, the very soul and center of the faith I represent, 
the embodiment of all the principles for which Judaism 
stands, is the doctrine " The Fatherhood of God and the 
Brotherhood of Man." That is the doctrine upon which 
the synagogue bases itself; that is the doctrine that the 
Jew wrote upon his banner. " One God over all ; one 
brotherhood for all; justice and love unto all." Nations 
derided him, governments oppressed him, the world 
trampled him under foot ; the Jew stood by his banner ; he 
handed it onward from father to son; he gave his life 
in its defense. " The Brotherhood of man because of the 
Fatherhood of God ; " that is Israel's message to the world. 



JUDAISM: ITS PRINCIPLES AND HOPES 165 

Israel's mission is peace ! Israel's hope is humanity 
united; Israel's ambition, not its own glorification, but 
the glorification of Him who is the Father of all His 
earthly children. That is the dream of Israel's Messianic 
age; that is the secret of its vitality. Cannot the church 
and the synagogue unite upon that broad platform of the 
Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man? 

As a rabbi I stand proudly by my synagogue, and with 
all the ardor of conviction I say, with Jonah of old, — "I 
am a Hebrew ; " but at the same time, because I am a Jew, 
because I belong to that people, whose historic mission it 
is to stand as the priest of reconciliation and peace among 
the nations, I extend to you of the church, the right hand 
of fellowship, and call you " friend, co-worker, brother." 

Let the Church and the Synagogue unite in a spirit of 
harmony for the upliftment of man and the redemption of 
the race ; let Jew and Christian work together for all that 
will make for a truer fellowship and a sincerer co-opera- 
tion, and with united forces, and in sweetest accord let us 
sing that which is the hope of the Jew, the aim of the 
Christian, the ideal of all the ages, — 

" Have we not all one Father ? 
Hath not One God created us all ? 
Let love and peace reign over all the earth. 
Amen." 



XII 

MOHAMMED AND ISLAM 

By Colonel Alexander S. Bacon 

Of the New York Bar 

" Religions are many, — Religion is one" 

This is the trite saying to be found on the title-page of 
this collection of addresses on a score of religions by as 
many distinguished gentlemen, each of whom, save one, 
is known to be an eminent expounder of its tenets. I am 
not wholly satisfied with this assumed truism, and move an 
amendment : " Theologies are many; true religion is one." 

I am aware that no one has ever adequately defined 
" religion," let alone " true religion," as each has his own 
conception of it. Any discussion is, therefore, unsatis- 
factory, because not based on the firm foundation of an 
accepted definition, but certain groups have similiar ideas 
and ideals, and the argument of this address will be based 
on the conceptions of religion and morality generally 
accepted by orthodox Christians. 

Gauged by these ideals, is Islam true religion, or merely 
theology ? 

While sailing from Yokohama to Honolulu, some years 
ago, I became acquainted with the President of a Theo- 
logical Seminary whose benign face, snow-white hair and 
flowing beard emphasized the dignity of his exalted office. 
I said to him jokingly: "Doctor, after wide reading and 
some experience, I am inclined to believe that there are 
two things that should never be taught in theological 
seminaries, viz., metaphysics and theology" He laugh- 
ingly replied : " As to metaphysics, I agree with you ; 

166 



MOHAMMED AND ISLAM 167 

as to theology, there should be very little, but that little 
should be good." 

What constitutes " Good Theology " ? 

" Good theology " is simple, for Divine Wisdom has 
not spoken to ignorant men in Greek oracles. It connotes 
a belief in the true God; but mere belief (an operation of 
the mind) is not sufficient: there must be obedience to 
His commands (an operation of the will). We are taught 
in James ii, 19 and 20: 

" Thou believest that there is one God ; thou doest well : the devils 
also believe and tremble. But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith 
without works is dead ? " 

To illustrate : 

A loyal Unionist during the Civil War might have been 
a firm believer in the military genius of a Lee, but he 
was both a believer in, and obedient to, the military genius 
of a Grant. A religionist must not only have a correct 
mental belief in the abstract principles of correct theo- 
logy, but he must have an obedient heart that obeys the 
orders of his commander-in-chief. Besides, he must 
display to the world the banners of his army, which, in 
religion, are certain distinguishing facts and habits of 
life which, in time, culminate in Character. 

This thought may be illustrated further by the duties 
of a sentinel. He believes in his commanding officer 
and is loyal to him. But this is not enough. His general 
publishes certain orders which define his duties : he is to 
protect public property in the vicinity of his post and to 
keep a sharp lookout for the enemy. If he is ignorant of 
his orders or, knowing them, is disobedient or negligent, 
he is a faithless sentinel and is punished. 

A model soldier believes in his commander-in-chief, 



168 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

enlists in his army, learns his orders, and does his best to 
obey them. In time, his obedience becomes automatic; 
he obeys orders without thinking, both in the intoxication 
of victory and in the humiliation of defeat; he has thus 
acquired " the military habit " of implicit obedience and 
becomes the perfection of a good soldier. What the mili- 
tary habit is to a soldier, character is to a Christian : the 
fruit of a lifetime of correct thinking and obedient service ; 
the consummation of " good theology." 

Applying this military illustration to the Jew, it would 
mean belief in Jehovah, and obedience to the code of 
morals enunciated in the Ten Commandments, and the 
observance of circumcision and the keeping of the Sab- 
bath and the ceremonial law. To the Christian, it would 
mean (i) belief in Jehovah and His Divine Son; (2) re- 
pentance of sin, (3) baptism (enlistment in the army) 
and (4) good works, or a godly life based on the com- 
mandments and the Sermon on the Mount, culminating in 
Christian character. True religion is individual, not 
national and it connotes first, faith, a correct attitude of 
the mind, followed by repentance, a correct attitude of 
the individual heart, and baptism and a godly life, a 
correct, continuing attitude of the will. 1 

Every good soldier must know his orders before he can 
obey them : religious orders are found in the Holy 
Books of each religion, hence the command " Search the 
Scriptures." 

Having assumed this preliminary statement as to re- 
ligion, let us analyze the history of Mohammed and the 
development of Islam as set forth in the Koran, the holy 



1 1. Faith or Belief : Acts viii, 12-13; ^i, 37 J xv *» 3 1 5 John iii, 14-20. 
2. Repentance: Acts ii, 37-40; iii, 19.3. Baptism: Acts ii, 38; viii, 12; 
viii, 38; x, 48; xvi, 15; xvi, 33; xxii, 16; Mark xvi, 15, 16. 4. Good 
Works : 2 Pet. I, 5-1 1 ; John viii, 31 ; Acts xiv, 22 ; 1 Cor. ix, 27 ; Rev. ii. 

10. 



MOHAMMED AND ISLAM 169 

book of the Arab, and see whether it fulfills the require- 
ments of a true religion. 

It will be noted that under this definition, there can be 
no true religion without the all important prerequisite of 
a foundation belief in the TRUE God. The commander- 
in-chief who issues our orders must be duly commissioned. 
In building up, through life, a Palace of Character that 
is to endure through eternity, the foundation is all im- 
portant : a belief in a true " Divinity that doth shape our 
ends, rough-hew them how we will." This is the first 
and great commandment. On this foundation the palace 
is built, but the palace may, or may not, correspond to its 
foundation. 

The Immorality of Heathen Gods 

In the earlier periods of history, all the world believed 
in a multitude of gods. Whether we regard Central Asia 
as the origin of the human race, or the Nile valley as the 
developer of civilization, the same conditions prevailed. 
Every nation and every family had gods of their own, and 
they were simply innumerable. Athens once had 30,000, 
and it was said that, in Athens, it was easier to find a god 
than a man. These gods represented almost everything 
in heaven above, in the earth below, and the caverns be- 
neath ; and with the Greeks and Romans who boasted 
both of advanced civilization and advanced theology, their 
gods represented everything that was base in human 
nature, rather than the virtues, according to our modern 
standards of morality. 

Generally speaking, the moral character of these sup- 
posed gods was bad. They were of both sexes, were given 
in marriage, and were usually unfaithful to the marriage 
tie. They were thoroughly immoral. " Mercury was a 
systematic thief: he stole Apollo's oxen, Neptune's tri- 



i7o UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

dent, the girdle of Venus, the sword of Mars, the scepter 
of Jupiter and the tools of Vulcan. He was not only a 
thief, but the patron and teacher of thieves." 

Bacchus was the god of drunkenness, and his devotees 
of both sexes engaged in the wildest ribaldry and maddest 
extravagances. Pluto stole the goddess Proserpina for 
his wife, and carried her off by force. Venus, beautiful, 
graceful, and charming, was morally corrupt from begin- 
ning to end. The gods were always intriguing against 
one another, and took sides frequently with mortals in 
conflicts wherein brute force and cunning oppressed 
virtue. 

Among the gods of Greece and Rome, Jupiter or Zeus 
was the ruler of gods and men, and was held in the great- 
est consideration. If the human mind, unaided by 
divine revelation, could have originated any true concep- 
tion of God, the Greeks with their many philosophers, who 
were the wonder of the ages, would have accomplished the 
task. But the family life of Zeus and Hera, Jupiter and 
Juno, was disordered and shameful. They were always 
quarreling ; always intriguing ; without mutual confidence. 
Jupiter was generally successful by reason of his great 
power, but Juno often defeated him by cunning, and he 
once punished this " august queen of heaven " by hang- 
ing her up by a chain between heaven and earth. 

Jupiter was always in some amour with a goddess or 
earth-born princess. Juno was always suspicious of him, 
and with good cause, and Jupiter was always trying to get 
out of his troubles with falsehoods and false oaths. 

However, the religion of the Greeks — if such it may 
be called — was bright and sunshiny, while that of the 
peoples who were constantly in conflict with the Jews in 
Palestine, was gloomy, cruel and bloodthirsty. Among 
the Greeks, human sacrifices were almost unknown; 



MOHAMMED AND ISLAM 171 

in Palestine, they were frequent, and children were con- 
stantly burned alive in sacrifice to Moloch. 

The effect of these so-called religions upon the mo- 
rality of their devotees is told by St. Paul : 

" Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covet- 
ousness, maliciousness ; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity 
whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, in 
ventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding 
covenant breakers, without natural affection, unmerciful." (Romans i 
29-30.) 

By their fruits ye shall know them; such was the 
character developed by following the gods invented by a 
race of learned philosophers that conquered and civilized, 
yet brutalized the world. 

In remarkable contrast with the versatile immoralities 
and wickedness of the heathen gods, is the character of 
the One God revealed to the world by His own revelation 
of His attributes. He gave Himself a name: it was 
Jehovah. He was without sex, omnipotent, omniscient and 
omnipresent, a spirit who could not be, and must not be 
represented by any image. He was all-powerful and 
unchangeable. He had neither beginning nor ending, 
birth nor death, and when He intervened in the affairs of 
men, it was always to help virtue and punish vice in the 
great conflict between good and evil. Jehovah was every- 
thing that the gods were not. 

Jehovah's War against False Gods 

It is wise to remember that the dominant object of the 
Old Testament, the sacred scriptures of the Jew, was to 
establish the reign of Jehovah in the war against false 
gods. Take this out of the holy book and little remains. 
It took centuries of training to fix the true conception of 
God in the minds of even His own selected people. 



172 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

It is very doubtful if the early patriarchs, even Abraham 
and his illustrious great-grandson, Joseph, knew that 
there was only One God. They worshiped Jehovah, but 
there is nothing in the holy writing to indicate their firm 
belief in His exclusive existence, Jethro, the father- 
in-law of Moses, did not know this greatest of all facts. 
It was left to Moses, who has been considered the great- 
est human being that ever was born, and who lived 400 
years after Abraham, to proclaim to the world the one 
great Truth that God is one and there is no other. 

From Moses to the Christ, the world, except the chosen 
people, was shrouded in polytheism, and with the Jew, the 
conflict was continuous and bitter. It began with the call 
of Abraham, 2000 years before Christ, and the conflict is 
not ended; but the final victory is not doubtful. The 
reward of fidelity is the promise : " And in them shall 
all the families of the earth be blessed." 

The one salient and all important fact in true religion 
is a belief in Jehovah, the ONLY God. 

Even among the chosen people, the most literary, the 
most intellectual of their time — a people who have given 
us the choicest literature of the ages — the conflict was 
fierce. Under a good king, the Jews were good; under 
a bad king, they were bad, and went after strange gods, 
until finally, a terrible punishment was administered ; their 
sacred city was destroyed, and for fifty years Mt. Zion and 
Mt. Moriah were without an inhabitant ; carried away to a 
distant country, they suffered again the horrors of slavery ; 
seventy years they were tried as by fire. The result has 
given us the refined gold of pure monotheism. Since the 
days of the Captivity, no true Jew has been an idolater. 
The very name of Jew connotes the worship of Jehovah. 

The foundation of the Palace of Character was laid 
broad and deep in a correct mental conception of God. 



MOHAMMED AND ISLAM 173 

The true commander-in-chief had organized an army of 
Chosen People that should conquer the world through 
knowledge and love — through both the mind and the 
heart. 

The Jews' Reverence for Jehovah 

The gods of the heathen were treated with profane 
levity. The God of the Jew was treated with profoundest 
respect. In choosing them as a people, He had given Him- 
self a name, Jehovah, " I am that I am;" and with so 
great reverence was this name held, that it was never 
uttered except, in ancient times, in the temple, during cer- 
tain solemn ceremonies ; it was never even written, but the 
tetragrammaton Y H W H was substituted in its place. 
It was so sincerely revered that not only must His name 
not be taken in vain, but it must not be uttered or written 
at all. It became a Lost Word and it was not until the 
Sixteenth Century of the Christian era, that the confessor 
of Pope Leo X (1513) was presumptuous enough arbi- 
trarily to select vowels and construct a name, which he 
called Jehovah. That name is understood by scholars to 
be an incorrect pronunciation of the original name, and 
the Jewish and the Christian world was simply startled by 
the presumption of the confessor in daring even to attempt 
to utter a name so sacred. Even to this day the pious 
Jew reverently says Adonai, Lord, and not the lost word, 
Jehovah. 

This idea of the holiness of the name was so great that 
in the early part of the seventeenth century, when the wise 
men selected by King James I. gave to us the standard 
translation of the Bible, they found the tetragrammaton in 
the Old Testament 5989 times, and in each instance but 
seven, it was translated LORD in capitals. Masons will 
understand how the legend of the Master Mason's degree 
is founded upon this idea of deep reverence for Deity. 



174 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

We who have been born and educated in the atmosphere 
of the Jewish and Christian Scriptures, have no conception 
of the centuries of struggle, the millions of lives that have 
been lost, and the excruciating tortures inflicted in the 
fierce conflicts of the ages to establish the foundation of 
true religion : There is but One God and Jehovah is His 
name. 

We repeat the truism, that there can be no true religion 
that has not as its foundation the belief in the Jehovah of 
the Jew, the God of the Christian. 

This idea has been emphasized and elaborated upon, be- 
cause it will be found that Islam, the religion of Moham- 
med, has few elements of what we conceive to be religion, 
except the elemental fact of the belief in One God, with- 
out, however, the Jews' and the Christians' reverence for 
the holy name. The foundation of Islam was substan- 
tially right, the superstructure nearly all wrong, and the 
character developed in Islamites was what we would con- 
sider immoral and brutal. 



Religion and Morality 

We who are accustomed to religious training in the Jew- 
ish and Christian Scriptures cannot distinguish often be- 
tween religion and morality. To us, one connotes the 
other: religion is the tree; morality the fruit. Yet they 
are as wide apart as the east is from the west. Many so- 
called religions are wholly disassociated from morals. A 
man may be intensely religious and wholly lacking in mo- 
rality. His brain may be right, and his heart wrong. But 
the true God, as a ruler over the universe and over men, 
in His character as an autocrat, who had a right to impose 
conditions on His subjects, has enunciated a code of morals 
that we call the Ten Commandments. They are separate 
and distinct from the ceremonial laws of the Hebrews. 



MOHAMMED AND ISLAM 175 

These ancient Commandments, being laws of negation or 
restraint, were exactly suited to the conditions of prima- 
tive mankind. But in the progress of the ages, when 
Jehovah sought in His progressive war against false gods 
to proclaim to the world a perfect moral code, He blessed 
humanity with a new economic, political and moral plat- 
form called the Sermon on the Mount, which is the con- 
summation of moral grandeur and divine knowledge. The 
religion of the Jew and the Christian connotes an insepa- 
rable morality. 

We will find that Mohammed was a teacher of true re- 
ligion only in so far as the attitude of the mind in conver- 
sion was concerned. In the war against false gods, he 
was on the side of Jehovah ; he destroyed idols and taught 
the Arabs to worship the one God, a Spirit, whose attri- 
butes resembled essentially the Jew's conception of deity. 
But further than this abstract conception, Mohammed 
never got. His was theory, not practice, theology not 
religion. The alleged commandments of Allah and their 
effect upon good morals were as wide as the heavens from 
the moral code of God. The fruit of Islam was immo- 
rality and hate, not morality and love. 

Islam, while advancing many moral truths, emphasized 
the pet vices of the Arabs, and condoned habits brutal, 
vicious and immoral. It sanctioned polygamy, slavery 
and bloodthirstiness ,and its idea of heaven was a luxuri- 
ous harem. 

The Gospels condemned polygamy and enunciated prin- 
ciples that necessarily freed the slave and worked for 
universal peace. Christianity was promulgated by the 
humble and lowly, without the authority of the sword or 
the mace. In a single century it had permeated the civi- 
lized world and had revivified the nations with hope. It 
found the world ruled by a small body of patrician 
masters controlling a large body of slaves. To the master 



176 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

only was conceded an undying soul; the slave, at his 
death, went back to the dust whence he came. The new 
religion taught that the humblest man had a soul; that 
character was supreme, and that heaven was full of moral 
slaves and hell full of immoral masters. 



Repentance 

A unique feature of this new religion, and one which 
stamps it as of divine origin, is its absolute requirement of 
Repentance or a changed life — an " about face " — in 
order to attain membership. So far as we know, this is 
peculiar to Christianity. 

John the Baptist, who was probably the greatest and 
most successful preacher that the world ever knew, 
preached Repentance to the thousands that flocked to the 
valley of the Jordan to hear him. This was his one theme : 
" Turn away from sin ; " and as an outward symbol of such 
repentance, he baptized his converts in the Jordan. The 
first sermon ever preached by the Lord was on Repentance. 
This was the one great topic : " Repent, for the kingdom 
of heaven is at hand." (Matt, iv, 17.) In the conversions 
recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, Repentance is em- 
phasized. It was a prime necessity to conversion (Acts 
ii, 38; iii, 19.) The one dominant feature of the new 
religion was Repentance by the individual, the turning 
away from a life of sin, and accepting the new code of 
morals which was to develop character. The conversion 
of nations, as such, was not provided for. Religion was 
an individual, not a national, affair. Islam knew nothing 
of repentance. 

In 300 years this new Christian religion had conquered 
the world by changing the hearts of the common people, 
and, finally, by conquering its emperor. From that era 
of triumph its ranks were rapidly filled with the ambitious 



MOHAMMED AND ISLAM 177 

and vicious, who sought its political influence and worldly 
advantage. Repentance, the dominant idea of conversion, 
was lost sight of, and elaborate rituals and political 
methods developed numberless sects and corrupt national 
character, that had little to distinguish them from 
Paganism. 

Political and Social Conditions in the Seventh 
Century 

By the seventh century, Europe had been overrun by 
the Huns, Rome was humiliated and impotent, and the 
new Greek empire and Constantinople were harassed by 
the Persians, who, in turn, had been weakened since the 
days of Chosroes by incompetent rulers. Universal 
chaos prevailed, Roman influence had entirely disap- 
peared, and conflicts between Persians and Greeks had 
left them both weak and helpless. Such was the political 
condition of the world when a child was born in Mecca, 
a small, inaccessible city in the interior of the deserts of 
the Arabian peninsula. 

Even now the wild Bedouin tribes of Arabia are free, 
and owe real allegiance to no one. Arabia has never been 
conquered by a foreign people. It has two divisions, 
Yemen and Hejaz. Yemen towards the Persian Gulf, is 
called Arabia Felix, and is in many respects fertile. It 
has no rivers, but an occasional deluge of rain sweeps 
everything before it. The people are divided into tribes, 
partly nomadic and partly collected in villages of rude 
architecture. Their tastes are simple; their powers of 
indurance great ; their tempers passionate. Even Alex- 
ander and Caesar turned aside without caring to overrun 
a country that was not worth conquering. 

Arabs, Bedouins or Saracens claim to be direct de- 
scendants of Ishmael, of whom the angel of the Lord 



178 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

said : " He will be a wild man ; his hand will be against 
every man and every man's hand against him." (Gen. 
xvi. 12.) All through the centuries they have been 
robbers. 

" The true Bedouin style of plundering, with its numer- 
ous niceties of honor and gentlemanly manners, gives the 
robber a consciousness of moral rectitude. ' Strip off 
that coat, O certain person ! and that turban/ exclaims the 
highwayman, ' they are wanted by my lady-cousin/ You 
will, of course, lend ready ear to an order thus politely 
attributed to the wants of the fair sex." 

" The Bedouin considers himself a man only when 
mounted on horseback, lance in hand, bound for a foray 
or a fray, and carolling some such gaiety as:< 

" A steede ! a steede of matchlesse speede, 
A sword of metal keene ; 
All else to noble minds is drosse, 
All else on earth is meane ! " 

Generally speaking, an Arab despises and maltreats all 
strangers. One of the later Califs " persecuted the Jews 
and Christians, ordering that they should never ride on 
horses, but only on donkeys and mules, and that without 
stirrups ; that their dwellings should be marked by figures 
of dogs and monkeys, and their persons always known by 
yellow dresses ; he refused them the right to enter the 
baths frequented by Moslems, or to occupy any office of 
public service; they were restricted in regard to their 
schools and places of worship. Their taxes were doubled 
and the very indications of their graves were obliterated." 

In the seventh century, Yemen was largely under 
Persian influence. The rest of the country was divided 
into small tribes, many of whom were Jews who had 
fled to this desolate country after the destruction of 
Jerusalem by Titus, in the year 70 of our era. These 



MOHAMMED AND ISLAM 179 

Jews, during the centuries, had assumed the character- 
istics, including the dress and language, of the Arabs, but 
there never was a time when they forsook the worship of 
Jehovah. Many Christians too were scattered through- 
out Arabia, but they were, generally speaking, of 
heretical sects that knew very little of the Gospels or the 
pure tenets of Christianity. 

The Arabs were naturally poetic, and their language 
especially so, but, generally speaking, the people were 
illiterate. Mohammed could, probably, neither read nor 
write, and he and his followers took pride in that fact, 
and claimed that the Koran was a miracle on that account. 



The Ancient Religion of the Arabs 

Generally speaking, the people were grossly idolatrous 
and had all the vices, (including the destruction of female 
babies), hereinbefore accredited to idolaters. They 
seemed to have worshiped a god resembling Jehovah 
somewhat, but at the same time, they worshiped a large 
number of other gods who represented everything in the 
heavens above and the earth beneath. They were polyga- 
mists, slaveholders, liars, thieves and murderers, and 
had all the vices in the calendar. They had a certain 
hospitality which has been magnified by some writers, but 
this seems to have been a necessity in their profession as 
land pirates. In short, the people were, as a mass, 
ignorant, illiterate, immoral, deceitful, revengeful, and 
brutal, from the standpoint of Christian virtues. 

Mecca was the religious capital of the Arabs. It had 
one great mosque which is now an open space surrounded 
by corridors, in the midst of which is the sacred shrine 
called the Kaaba, built into the southeast corner of which 
is a small dark brown stone, called the Black Stone of 
Mecca, This Kaaba has one small door covered with 



180 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

silver, seven feet from the ground; it has no windows, 
and its dimensions are, substantially, 18 paces long, 14 
paces wide, and 35 or 40 feet high. The top part of it is 
covered twice a year with a new drapery, made by a 
hereditary family in Egypt. Inside of the temple en- 
closure is the sacred well, Zem Zem, which is said to have 
been discovered by Ishmael, and his life thus saved in the 
desert. Its waters are brackish and nauseating. Tradi- 
tion traces the origin of the Kaaba and the Black Stone 
back to the days of Abraham, and even to Adam. The 
Kaaba has been many times rebuilt, and the Black Stone, 
which is claimed to have been originally white, and to 
have descended from heaven when Adam left Paradise, is 
evidently a brownish aerolite, now broken into several 
pieces. 

Very few pilgrims enter inside of the Kaaba, and many 
refuse to do so for religious reasons. Those who tread 
the hallowed floor are bound, among other things, never 
again to walk barefooted, to take up fire with the fingers, 
or to tell lies. Arabs cannot afford the luxury of slip- 
pers, tongs, and the truth. Indeed, enforced truth would 
put most of them out of business. 

A perpetual law was enacted that no unbeliever should 
dare to set his foot on the territory of the Holy City. 
Moslems are so jealous of their holy shrines at Mecca 
and Medina, that any infidel known to be approaching 
them would be murdered. No infidel, as far as known, 
has been able to penetrate as far as the Holy City since 
the time of William Pitts, eighteenth century, Burkhardt, 
181 1, and Burton, 1853. Captain Burton went in the 
disguise of an Afghan Dervish. The new railroad 
through Mecca will have to be built and operated by 
Moslems and carry none but Moslem passengers. 

Mecca was a city of merchants, who made their money 
by trading with the pilgrims who visited that city on 



MOHAMMED AND ISLAM 181 

pilgrimages to the Kaaba. The very name of the 
province, Hejaz, signifies " land of pilgrimage " and with- 
out these pilgrimages, which are enforced on all good 
Moslems, Mecca would scarcely exist at all. 

The hadj or pilgrimage has to be made in the month 
Dzuh Hijj. The pilgrims make seven circuits of the 
Kaaba, three times at a rapid pace and four times at a 
walk, stopping at various corners to recite certain ritual- 
istic prayers and kiss the Black Stone. A courier will 
repeat these prayers for ignorant pilgrims for a reasonable 
compensation. 

The pilgrimage includes a journey to Mt. Arafat and to 
Mina, a description of which ceremonies would be inter- 
esting, but not within the limited confines of this address. 

The principal features of the old Arabic worship were 
idolatry and this pilgrimage to Mecca, so profitable to the 
tribe Koreish, which had the custody of the Kaaba. 
Mohammed, as a reformer, destroyed idolatry, but made 
few other changes that we would call material. 

Life of Mohammed 

Mohammed was a posthumous child and his mother 
died shortly after his birth. He was brought up by 
his grandfather who, according to custom, entrusted him 
to a nurse who took him out into the desert to be brought 
up in the pure air. He seems to have been an epileptic 
and subject to hallucinations and delusions. 

He was descended by a collateral branch from a promi- 
nent man of the Hashim family, of the tribe Koreish, 
which had charge of the Kaaba and its incidental emolu- 
ments. His grandfather having died, he was brought up 
by his uncle, Abu Taleb, who never became a Moham- 
medan, but protected his nephew from the feudists of 
Mecca up to the time of his death. In early life, Moham- 



182 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

med saw something of Arabia and Syria by accompany- 
ing caravans belonging to his uncle, and when about 
twenty-five years of age, he was entrusted with a business 
enterprise of a rich widow. His position was probably 
subordinate: that of a camel driver. At its successful 
accomplishment, the widow proposed matrimony, and they 
were married, although he was twenty-five and she was 
forty. This marriage was fortunate in many ways. It 
put him on a social equality with the important citizens 
of Mecca, and raised him above want, and his wife en- 
couraged and, perhaps, inspired him in all of his future 
movements. She was his first convert, and active assist- 
ant. He never ventured to take a second wife while she 
was alive. She bore him six children, two boys and four 
girls. The four daughters survived and one of them, 
Fatima, married her cousin Ali, and became the mother 
of a line of Califs. 

The deeper I study the life of Mohammed, the more I 
am impressed with the fact that his pretended revelations 
were not even sincere, but were an incident, and an instru- 
ment, in a quarrel between two Mecca families over the 
control of the Kaaba, and its incidental profits. This 
quarrel had continued for several generations and the 
friction was great when Mohammed's " mission " began 
at about the age of forty and became a valuable asset in 
the feud. Seven years later, the Koreishites made a 
solemn convenant against the Hashimites engaging not 
to contract marriage with any of them and to have no 
communication with them; and to make it more solemn, 
reduced it to writing, and deposited it in the Kaaba. 
This boycott continued for three years, when it was dis- 
solved, Mohammed showing that it had the disfavor of 
Allah in that the whole writing, except the name of Allah, 
had been wholly eaten up by insects. We see in this 
incident the skill of the magician and soothsayer. 



MOHAMMED AND ISLAM 183 

As his enemies favored the old religion, Mohammed 
favored the Jewish faith, and waged war on idols, 365 of 
which were worshiped in the Kaaba. His younger son 
had, however, been named after an idol. Others before 
him had preached monotheism in Hejaz, and at first he 
claimed to advocate nothing but a return to the ancient 
pure religion of Abraham. 

Mohammed was not treated seriously, but all manner 
of ridicule was heaped upon him. Some called him a 
soothsayer, some crack-brained, some a simple liar. This 
was true not only in Mecca but in the surrounding towns 
where he went for converts. 

In a dream, he went to Jerusalem one night, and from 
the top of Mt. Moriah ascended into the various heavens. 
When he told his experiences, his disciples begged him to 
keep quiet about it: it was too much for them even to 
accept, but he proclaimed it as a revelation from God, and 
it is referred to in the Koran. 

The rock from which Mohammed said he ascended 
into heaven, is well known to history. It is presumed to 
be the altar on which Abraham attempted to offer Isaac. 
David offered his sacrifices upon it, and Solomon left it 
projecting when he leveled Mt. Moriah for the founda- 
tions of the Temple. It was enclosed, (at least a part of 
it), within his great altar of brass which was thirty feet 
square ; and the hole drilled through the top of it and the 
one through the floor of the cavern beneath it, were used 
to allow the blood of the victims to flow into an under- 
ground channel, and thence into the valley of the Kedron. 

The dome of the Mosque of Omar was built directly 
above it, a dome that is called the handsomest in the 
world, not on account of its ornamentation within or with- 
out, but on account of its beautiful symmetry; yet with- 
in this dome is a most elaborate network of beautiful 



184 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

mosaics, in gold and silver and precious marbles and 
precious stones. 

In visiting Jerusalem in 1879, I had convincing proof 
of the facts related by Mohammed, because the attending 
Arab, after liberal bucksheesh, showed me the footprints 
of the Prophet in the solid stone. The Prophet wore 
number twenty-nines. This rock wanted to follow 
Mohammed up into Heaven and started upwards of its 
own accord, but the Angel Gabriel said " no," placed his 
hand upon it, and it stopped still, in mid air, where it 
remains suspended to this day. I know this is true be- 
cause the Arab said so, and he pointed out to me the finger 
marks of the Angel in the solid stone, when he restrained 
this huge rock in its upward flight. From the appearances 
of the finger marks, Gabriel must have had a grip like 
a trip-hammer. 

I went into the cave beneath this rock. The Arab said 
that nothing supported the rock, although the walls on 
either side looked very strong and heavy. But the Arab 
having told me that the rock was suspended in mid air, 
without support, I was obliged, of course, to believe it. 

The other remarkable things told me by the Arab con- 
cerning what had happened within this temple area, were 
almost enough to shatter my credulity, but, of course, I 
was obliged to believe the Arab as I had paid bountifully 
for his instruction. 

After three years, Mohammed had fourteen converts. 
After ten years, about a dozen members of a Medina 
pilgrimage were converted. Medina, a small town, about 
250 miles north of Mecca, was the headquarters for 
Jewish Arabs who were constant foes of idolatry, and it 
was an easy matter for these Medinans to accept a new 
gospel which did not vary materially from Arabic beliefs, 
except in the abolition of idols. In his earlier days, 
Mohammed was very friendly to the Jews. His first 



MOHAMMED AND ISLAM 185 

prayers were directed towards Jerusalem, not Mecca, 
but finding it absolutely impossible to detach the Jews 
from their ancient worship, he became their implacable 
enemy and persecutor, causing their poets who ridiculed 
him to be secretly assassinated, and finally, every Jewish 
tribe was expelled from Arabia. 

Where Mohammed got his one salient religious idea, 
" There is but one God," can readily be seen : it was 
Jewish. As Mohammed's influence was extended in 
Mecca, and he ceased to be treated wholly with ridicule, 
the family feud was intensified. Some of his adherents 
were banishel and went to Ethiopia. In the year A. D. 
619, Kadijah, his wife, died, as did also his uncle, who 
had protected him, and from that time on his stay in 
Mecca was precarious ; the feud was acute, and he had no 
sufficient backing at home. He seems to have lost his 
fortune also. 

On the pilgrimage of a.d. 622, seventy inhabitants of 
Medina had a clandestine meeting with Mohammed, his 
flight was agreed upon, and all Mohammedans fled secretly 
from idolatrous Mecca to monotheistic Medina. Ali, his 
young and enthusiastic supporter, occupied Mohammed's 
bed, thus permitting him to elude and escape his enemies. 
Medina now became the headquarters of the new religion, 
and of a warfare against Mecca. The feud was continued 
from the outside. Mohammed now assumed the func- 
tions of a judge, lawgiver and king. 

After the death of his wife, and with increasing 
prosperity, fame and power, Mohammed took unto him- 
self wife after wife, probably fifteen in all, — twelve or 
thirteen in ten years, — and, strangely, all widows, except 
Ayesha, the daughter of Abu Bekr. Although the Koran 
permitted but four wives (besides concubines) the Apostle 
of God was, of course, an exception. His outside amours 
were often faulty, and not always discreet, inasmuch as 



186 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

his wives sometimes caught him in offenses, but in every 
instance a new revelation from on high indicated that he 
was in the right and that he should not mind the clamor 
of his wives. One of his principal supporters was Zeyd, 
a manumitted slave and adopted son, who afterwards died 
in battle. He had a beautiful wife, who when seen and 
admired by Mohammed, was immediately divorced and 
married by the prophet. This created scandal, but a new 
" revelation " made it all right. This wife was very 
much inflated with pride by reason of the fact that she 
was the only wife who had been given to Mohammed by a 
direct revelation from heaven. Indeed, Gabriel rather 
reproached Mohammed for even suggesting that Allah 
would not be willing to favor him in any way that he 
should wish. 

Mohammedans reckon time from the Hegira, or flight 
from Mecca (a.d. 622). Theirs was a lunar year, and 
this fact confuses dates somewhat. On the spot where 
the sacred camel that bore the prophet from Mecca to 
Medina halted on the outskirts of the village, a mosque 
was built and Mohammed afterwards built little houses 
around it, one for the accommodation of each wife. They 
were plain cabins about twelve feet square. In one of 
these he died and was buried. 

Medina having been impregnated with the religious 
ideas of the Jews, was promptly converted to the new 
Mohammedan faith, which worshiped one God only and 
rejected idols. Mohammed now changed his attitude 
entirely. Before this time, he had been an apostle of 
peace; he now advocated the sword. Medina became a 
nest of robbers, a headquarters for land pirates. Too 
few to attack an army, they rushed out of Medina and 
fell upon the defenseless caravans of Mecca, captured 
them and divided the booty, Mohammed taking one-fifth 
in the name of Allah. The Arabs now had an incentive 



MOHAMMED AND ISLAM 187 

to be religious. There was profit in it, and tribe after 
tribe proclaimed themselves Mohammedans and joined 
his white banner. 

It will be noticed that no ceremony was necessary in 
becoming a Mohammedan; simply a tribal proclamation 
by the Sheik, an acknowledgment of the leadership of 
Mohammed and the declaration of belief : " There is no 
God but Allah and Mohammed is his prophet." Chris- 
tians have the ceremony of baptism after a profession of 
belief in God and Jesus, as the Son of God, and after 
repentance for sin. The Jews had their appropriate cere- 
monies on receiving proselytes, but Mohammedan conver- 
sion was easy, and was accomplished by no change of 
moral attitude, no turning from sin. 

Shortly, Mohammed was sufficiently strong to attack an 
army that came out from Mecca to defend the caravans. 
He was successful at the battle of Bedr. This gave him 
great spoils and prestige. Shortly after he was defeated 
in the battle of Ohod (625) but this did not seem to 
decrease his prestige, as he had no spoils with him to 
lose. Revelations from heaven magnifying war and com- 
manding the faithful to extend their faith by bloodshed 
now became frequent. 

Mohammed's moral bravery — or was it assurance ? — 
has never been doubted, but his physical bravery has been 
questioned. Although present at several battles and 
forays, he never appeared on the " firing line." Although 
wounded at Ohod, it was by a stone thrown from a dis- 
tance. Those were times when individual prowess was 
extravagantly esteemed and challenges to individual com- 
bat were common, as preliminaries to battle ; but in these 
spectacular contests, Mohammed had no part. AH was 
the most prominent volunteer and was universally success- 
ful. 

In the year 628, Mohammed approached Mecca with an 



188 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

army, but not being sufficiently strong to risk a battle, he 
enter into a ten-years treaty wherein he practically 
abandoned his alleged apostleship, and humbly craved the 
privilege of going to Mecca in the following year for a 
pilgrimage. 

Two years later, having a larger army, he declared the 
treaty violated and captured Mecca without a struggle. 
The Meccans readily submitted, the only change required 
of them being the destruction of their idols and acknowl- 
edgment of the apostleship and leadership of Mohammed. 
The profitable pilgrimages were continued, and the cus- 
tody of the Kaaba remained with the Koreish. The quar- 
rel between families was abandoned. Mohammed had 
found a wider field, where there was more profit in rob- 
bery than in selling food to pilgrims. 

The headquarters of the new religion was continued, 
however, at Medina, and within a few years, all Arabia 
was submissive to the prophet; all were converted to 
Islam, idols were abolished, and the worship of Allah 
established. The Moslems now turned from plundering 
the rich caravans of Mecca to the richer caravans of the 
world. They shed blood in torrents. 

The net result of Mohammed's life-work at this time 
was the abolition of idol worship, the worship of Allah, 
as the one supreme being, and the consolidation of all 
the disorganized Arabian tribes into one compact body, 
under one leadership, with one dominating object of con- 
quering everybody not a Mohammedan, and despoiling 
him of his wealth. 

Mohammed died in a.d. 633, the nth year of the 
Hegira, and was buried at Medina. 

The Spread of Islam 

Abu Bekr, Mohammed's father-in-law, was the first 



MOHAMMED AND ISLAM 189 

Calif. He was an amiable old gentleman and lived two 
years. During this time, Kahlid, who proved to be the 
greatest general of his age, conquered Syria. Conquest 
meant a choice of (1) conversion, (2) tribute, or (3) 
annihilation. Of course, conversion was preferred; it 
was cheaper than tribute and less painful than death or 
slavery. While nearly every conquered people was " con- 
verted," it is only just to note the exception of the Jews 
who preferred tribute, death or exile, to a denial of their 
God. 

On the death of Abu Bekr (a.d. 634) he named 
Omar, who was another father-in-law of Mohammed, as 
his successor. Omar was of simple tastes and stern 
habits. Under his administration, the conquests were ex- 
tended remarkably and Jerusalem was captured. He made 
a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and prepared the foundations 
of the celebrated mosque of Omar, which still stands on 
Mt. Moriah. Egypt and Persia were overthrown and 
" converted." " During the reign of Omar, the Saracens 
conquered 3600 cities, towns and castles, destroyed 4000 
Christian, Magian and pagan temples, and erected 1400 
mosques." The annals of the world present no parallel 

After a reign of ten years, Omar was assassinated 
(a.d. 644) and Othman, the secretary of Mohammed 
and his double son-in-law, an old and slothful lieutenant, 
was made Calif. He was much given to nepotism and his 
reign was unsatisfactory, but conquests were unabated. 
Othman was assassinated after a reign of twelve years 
and from that time, Islam began to be divided into 
numberless sects. 

Ali, the husband of Fatima, daughter of Mohammed, 
was proclaimed Calif, but a stronger man had appeared in 
Syria. Moayiyah was a strong character and created 
trouble. Finally, three assassins conspired in Mecca to 
take the lives of Ali, Moayiyah and Amru, the conqueror 



190 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

of Egypt, and thus free Islam from three warring rivals ; 
but they succeeded in killing Ali only. Moayiyah became 
the founder of the Omayyad dynasty of Califs that con- 
tinued in power for ninety years, and during their reigns, 
the power of the sword was extended from the pillars of 
Hercules and the Pyrenees to the banks of the Indus and 
the Himalayas. The Omayyad Califs introduced the 
luxury and splendor for which Oriental pomp is pro- 
verbial. 

The empire of the Arabians was now more extensive 
than that of the Romans, but the most remarkable feature 
of it is the fact that during a brief period, the Arab race 
developed intellectually from a childish race of illiterate 
barbarians to the most civilized people in the world. 

The Omayyad Dynasty having become weak, it was 
supplanted by the Abbasid Dynasty (a.d. 750-1258) 
which built Bagdad in Mesopotamia, and made this 
capital the symbol of Oriental splendor as revealed in the 
Arabian Nights' tales. It was this dynasty that encoun- 
tered the Crusaders. 

The Arabs in Spain (a.d. 711-1492) were the school- 
masters of Europe. While Europe endured its Dark 
Ages, sunk in densest ignorance ; when kings and princes 
and great army commanders could not read and write, 
the Arabians became the great architects, scientists, 
physicians, chemists, astronomers, and literateurs of the 
world. They translated the Greek and Roman classics 
and many of these priceless works are known through 
Arabic translations only. In pure mathematics, in 
geometry and algebra, in architecture, in medicine, in 
surgery, chemistry and astronomy, they were practically 
the only learned people of the world. Ignorant Europe 
went to school to the Moorish colleges of Spain. 

Gunpowder, paper, and the compass were invented or 
developed during this time and the foundations of modern 



MOHAMMED AND ISLAM 191 

or European learning were laid in the remarkable develop- 
ment of the Arab race during the 100 years when it con- 
quered nearly the whole of the then civilized world. 

While Bagdad was at its zenith, Jenghiz Khan appeared 
in the far eastern horizon, as a hideous nightmare. He 
was a native of those remote regions which had repeatedly 
poured their fierce hordes down upon the dominions of 
the Califs. He was born about the year 1164, in the 
rough region north of the great wall of China. After 
subduing China, indeed the greater part of Asia, and ex- 
tending his dominion to the Persian Gulf, he died in 1227, 
just as he was preparing for further invasion, and his 
bloody scepter was passed over to his son. He had, it is 
said, by his wars and massacres caused the death of five 
or six millions of his fellow-beings. His grandson was 
the first Sultan of Persia. He captured Bagdad, putting 
the Calif to death, sacrificing, according to a probably 
exaggerated account, 1,600,000 citizens of the great 
capital. 

Thus, amid the groans of dying thousands, and the 
wild exultations of a horde of victorious Tartars and 
Monguls, the califate that had created Bagdad, the 
magnificent, and for five hundred years had made it the 
illustrious center of art, science, and letters, was forever 
extinguished ; but Islam did not die. 

Two hundred and sixty millions of human beings 
still profess to follow the teachings of the prophet; five 
times a day they spread their mats and turn their faces 
towards the spot made sacred to them by his birth, and 
utter prayers he taught ; daily the voice of the muezzin is 
heard from thousands of minarets boldly calling the faith- 
ful from contemplation of this world to thoughts of the 
next. 

Before the Tartar invasion, certain Turkish captives 
had been enslaved in Bagdad; were freed; became con- 



192 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

fidential advisers of the Califs, then household troops, and 
then subverted the monarchy. The grandson of Jenghiz 
Khan became a Mohammedan convert and the head of 
the Turkish line of Califs. 

In 1453, the Greek empire of Byzantium was destroyed 
by the capture of Constantinople by the Turks, since which 
time the Turkish influence has been gradually diminish- 
ing. 

The Koran 

Let us now consider briefly the principal tenets of 
Islam, and its effect upon national character and the 
history of the world. 

The revelations of Mohammed were not written down 
by him, but were committed to memory by professional 
Readers, many of whom were killed in battle. Some of 
these revelations were written down by secretaries on 
skins, bones, leather, and leaves of the palm. Fearing that 
these " revelations " would be lost by the death of all the 
Readers, Othman collected them into the standard edition 
of the Koran (or The Reading) as we know it to-day. 

The Arabs were taught that the Koran existed from the 
beginning and was simply transmitted from the Angel 
Gabriel to Mohammed. It was supposed to be the perfec- 
tion of literature. Analytical critics have determined, 
however, that it is about the poorest literature in the 
Arabic tongue, which is, perhaps, the oldest language in 
the world. There were many polished poems in Arabic 
at this time, but the Koran was merely rhymed prose 
or doggerel. The modern reader finds it incoherent, dull 
and tedious. It has no system, having been thrown to- 
gether without relation to chronology or subject matter, 
and, apparently, with relation to length of chapters only. 
Its persual is neither edifying nor instructive. 



MOHAMMED AND ISLAM 193 

It recognizes as prophets, Adam, Noah, Moses, Jesus, 
and Mohammed, who was, of course, the greatest of 
them all. It recognizes as authority the Pentateuch, the 
Psalms and the Gospels. Without doubt, its salient idea, 
the unity of God, was taken from the Jewish scriptures. 
Of the gospels, Mohammed knew little. His objection 
to the Jews seems to have been their persistent refusal 
to recognize him as a prophet. The Christians were more 
objectionable because, as he claimed, the Trinity connoted 
the worship of three gods, while Islam was strictly 
Unitarian. \ 

He preserved all the abhorrent practices permitted to 
the Jews in their primitive state, 2000 years before, 
practices that were repudiated by the Gospels. He con- 
tinued polygamy, but prohibited gaming and drunkenness. 
While he proclaimed a mission of peace, when he was 
weak and powerless, he propagated a religion of the sword 
when strong enough to wield the sword. Says the Koran : 

" Fight in the cause of Allah. Kill them wherever you find them, 
and drive them out from whence they drive you out; for temptation is 
worse than slaughter ; but fight them not by the sacred mosque until 
they fight you there ; then kill them. (Sura, or Chapter ii.) 

" When ye meet those who misbelieve, then strike off heads, until 
ye have massacred them ; and bind fast the bonds. And those who are 
slain in the cause of Allah, their work shall not go wrong. (Sura xlvii.) 

" Ye shall be called out against a people endowed with vehement 
valor, and shall fight them, or they shall become Moslems. Allah 
promised you many spoils. (Sura xlviii.) 

" From all sides the roving Arabs were allured to the 
standard of religion and plunder; the apostle sanctified 
the license of embracing the female captives as their wives 
or concubines ; and the enjoyment of wealth and beauty 
was a feeble type of the joys of paradise prepared for the 
valiant martyrs of the faith. ' The sword ' says Mohamet, 
1 is the key of heaven and hell ; a drop of blood shed 



194 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

in the cause of God, a night spent in arms, is of more avail 
than two months of fasting or prayer: whosoever falls 
in battle, his sins are forgiven; at the day of judgment 
his wounds shall be resplendent as vermilion, and odor- 
iferous as musk ; and the loss of his limbs shall be supplied 
by the wings of angels and cherubim.' The intrepid 
souls of the Arabs were fired with enthusiasm ; the picture 
of the invisible world was strongly painted on their im- 
agination ; and the death which they had always despised 
became an object of hope and desire." 

He taught extreme fatalism and predestination. No 
soldier by cowardice and runing away, could avoid the 
decree of fate ; dying in battle, he went straight to 
paradise. The Koran ideas of heaven and of hell are as 
follows : 

Heaven was divided into seven gardens of varying de- 
grees of bliss ; gardens of grass, and flowers, and running 
waters, and women of ravishing beauty housed in 
resplendent luxury. " Hell was likewise divided into 
seven parts: Gehenna, the Flaming Fire, the Raging 
Fire that splits everything to pieces, the Blaze, the 
Scorching Fire, the Fierce Fire, and finally the Abyss. 
In the first hell, wicked Islamites were confined tempo- 
rarily ; in the second are the Jews ; in the third, the Chris- 
tians in the fourth the Sabians ; in the fifth the Magians ; 
in the sixth the idol-worshipers ; and in the bottommost, 
hypocrites who have falsely professed some religion. 
This hell in all its departments was a place which men 
accustomed to the trials of a hot country would consider 
an abode of direst misery." 

" But all the glories of Heaven will be eclipsed by the 
resplendent and ravishing girls of paradise, called, from 
their large black eyes, Hur al oyun, the enjoyment of 
whose company will be a principal felicity of the faithful. 
These, they say, are created, not of clay, as mortal women 



MOHAMMED AND ISLAM 195 

are, but of pure musk, being, as their prophet often affirms 
in his Koran, free from all natural impurities, defects, and 
inconveniences incident to the sex, of the strictest 
modesty, and secluded from public view in pavilions of 
hollow pearls, so large, that as some traditions have it, one 
of them will be no less than four parasangs (or as others 
say, sixty miles) long, and as many broad." 

Every Mohammedan was to have seventy-two black- 
eyed wives in Paradise ; not his old wives ; they, as a rule, 
were to be in the other place. 

" Mohammed alleged that the poor would enter Paradise 
500 years before the rich ; he also declared that when he 
took a view of Paradise he saw a majority of its inmates 
to be the poor, and when he looked down into Hell, he 
saw the greater part of the wretches confined there to be 
women." 

Divorce on the part of the husband was exceedingly 
easy; on the part of the wife, exceedingly difficult. 
Mohammed required the morals of each wife to be above 
suspicion ; his own lapses were limited by his opportuni- 
ties only, and the probabilities of discovery. 

Islam's effect on morality was absolutely nil. The 
Meccans who gave up the worship of the 365 idols in the 
Kaaba, changed their mode of life in no respect whatever. 
The frivolous ceremonies attendant upon the pilgrimage 
to Mecca were continued as before, and the profits thereof 
continued to flow into the coffers of the tribe of Koreish. 
They lost no profits by destroying the idols. The status 
of woman was far better during the " Time of Igno- 
rance " than under the Koran. 

In so far as Mohammed took his ideas of the true God 
from the Jewish scriptures, then 2000 years old, that is, 
as far as the abstract reasonings of the mind were con- 
cerned, the new theology was religious. He knew noth- 
ing of the heart religion that was to dominate the world 



196 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

through the conversion of individuals, that had been 
propagated in Judea 600 years before. 

Vain repetition in prayers that had been expressly con- 
demned in the gospels was firmly fixed by the Koran. 
The only feature of Islam by which it could be distin- 
guished by the outside world was the five daily prayers 
which consisted of foolish ritualism. 

Friday was the holy day of the Arab, as of the ancient 
Egyptians, but it meant nothing but attendance at the 
Mosque; the daily routine of business was continued. 
There was no day of rest. 

In the final analysis of Islam as a religion, we find that 
while it may have some resemblance to the philosophies 
of ancient Greece and Rome, of Buddha and Zoroaster, 
and has many commendable moral precepts ; as compared 
with the religions of the Jew and the Christian, it had but 
one element, viz., the correct foundation in a belief in the 
One God. The foundation of the Palace of Character 
was right ; the superstructure was wrong. There was no 
repentance for sin demanded so emphatically by John the 
Baptist, and by the Christ and his apostles ; there was no 
outward symbol of a day of rest to distinguish them from 
others; no imperative code of morals- that should distin- 
guish them from unregenerate Arabs or Spaniards. 

The fundamental belief of the mind was right; the 
operations of the will and the habits of life demanded of 
Christians, had no place in this new religion, so called. 
In other words, it was pure theology, a mere theory, not 
practice ; it was not religion. 

" And Jesus answered him, the first of all the commandments is, 
Hear, O Israel ; The Lord our God is one Lord : 

" And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with 
all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength : this is the 
first commandment, 

" And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor 
as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these." 
(Mark xii, 29, 30, 31.) 



MOHAMMED AND ISLAM 197 

The dominant note in Christianity is Love " And now 
abideth faith, hope, love, these three ; but the greatest of 
these is LOVE" (1 Cor. xiii, 13.) 

Islam has no suggestion of love of Allah any more than 
for the neighbor whom it butchers. It is bloody and made 
horrible by hate. No one after reading the Koran would 
suspect that it had even a remote connection with the 
religion of the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians and 
the twelfth chapter of Romans. 

We repeat: The Jewish scriptures laid a foundation 
broad and deep for the only true religion, in a belief in 
Jehovah. Connected with that belief, an operation of 
mind, was the mandate to obey the commandments, an 
operation of the will ; and led to a habit of life which 
connoted Character, the true aim of all moral discipline. 

The Jews were not in a marked degree a proselyting 
people, but, generally speaking, a proselyte must be cir- 
cumcised, be baptised or given a bath, and he was re- 
quired, of course, to obey the ceremonial law, including 
the strict observance of the Sabbath and feast days. 
Contrary to the usual belief, the Sabbath day was not 
a fixed day of the week, but consisted of fifty-two 
fixed days of the year beginning with the first day — 
every New Years Day and every seventh day thereafter 
was a Sabbath, except at Pentecost, when there was a 
double, or 48 hour Sabbath [7 X S 2 + 1 — 3^5]. 

At no time was the ceremonial law of the Jew more 
strictly adhered to than by the Pharisees 1900 years ago, 
when the Jew was in the depth of despair, ground down 
under the heel of the brutal Roman conqueror, who, 70 
years later, attempted to annihilate the race, destroy 
Jerusalem, and erase Palestine from the map. 

It was at this time, at the very height of Roman power 
an3 brutal dominion, that Jesus of Nazareth was born, 
and announced to the world that the Jewish religion, 



198 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

given to the world by God Himself by direct revelation, 
had been fulfilled — a religion that had thrived from the 
barbaric age to the consummation of Roman civiliza- 
tion; a religion that had produced a people of so firm 
character that they were willing to die for principle; a 
people that alone among the nations of the earth, would 
not submit to the hated Roman at the expense of their 
worship of Jehovah, and finally were almost destroyed 
and scattered to the remotest corners of the world for the 
simple reason that they would not be faithless to their 
worship of the one God. They were a race of heroes, the 
direct inspiration of the Christian martyrs under Nero 
and Diocletian. It was in these darkest days of the 
Jewish race that the Messiah appeared and reaffirmed and 
amplified the principles of the Jewish religion. He added 
to the ten commandments, the further code of morals 
known as the Sermon on the Mount. We repeat and 
emphasize the essentials of " good theology " from the 
standpoint of orthodox Christianity: 

i. A belief in the one God and His only Son — an act 
of the mind ; 

2. Repentance — an act of the will ; 

3. Confession by baptism — the outward sign of pro- 

fessing the new life : 

4. A life of good works intended to culminate in a 

character imitating the One Perfect Character. 

Islam presents nothing akin to this. Judged by this 
standard, it is not religion, not even good theology. 

The writer made a roughing tour in Syria thirty years 
ago, and after a rather intimate acquaintance with the 
Bedouins, is inclined to believe that they have not changed 
substantially since the days of Mohammed. They never 
reason from, and have no conception of, our code of 
morality. If I were addressing an audience of Arabs 
to-day and should say to them "You are all profane," 



MOHAMMED AND ISLAM 199 

they would answer quite innocently, "Of course, what 
of it ? " Their use of the name of deity is frivolous and 
ribald. u You are all obscene ; filthy inside and out." 
They would answer, " Yes, what of it ? " " You are all 
liars." " Well, what about it? " " You are all thieves." 
u Of course, we are, but you can't catch us at it." Indeed, 
they will take hours to turn over a sleeping traveler and 
steal the blanket from under him without waking him. 
" You are all murderers." " Yes, of course, we would 
kill a Christian, but we would not kill a dog." 

Religion does not connote morality with the Arab; at 
least, not our code of morals. The religion of the Arabs 
is as much a matter of merchandise as horses or camels. 
In their country where Islam is in political control, they 
are Mohammedans as a matter of course. If the strong 
hand of Russia should control Arabia and Asiatic Turkey, 
and should grant extra favors to the adherents of the 
Greek church, they would all be " converted " and turn 
Greeks in a day, and Protestants the next day if Russian 
influence should be supplanted by English. 

When we compare the life of Mohammed, the land 
pirate, with the life of Jesus, the Man of Peace ; and the 
incoherent, indecent, stupid doggerel of the Koran, with 
the beautiful prose of Holy Writ — when we compare 
the influence of the Koran on both individual and national 
character, with the influence of the Sermon on the 
Mount ; when we compare the civilizations of Mecca and 
Jerusalem, and the moral codes of Mohammed and 
Jesus, the Christ — we are constrained to say, " THEOL- 
OGIES ARE MANY; TRUE RELIGION IS ONE." 



WORKS CONSULTED, 

" The Koran " (Sale's translation). 
" Medina and Mecca " (Burton). 
" The Saracens " (Gilman). 



200 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

" The Life of Mahomet " (Muir ; Irving). 

" Half-Hours with Muhammed " (Wollaston). 

" The Intellectual Development of Europe " (Draper). 

" Jehovah's War Against False Gods " (Atwater). 

" The Jewish Encyclopedia." 

" The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Gibbon). 

" The Historians' History of the World." 

" Islam " (Zwemer). 



XIII 

CHRISTIANITY 

By William Adams Brown, Ph.D., D.D. 

Roosevelt Professor of Systematic Theology, Union Theological Semi- 
nary 

There are two possible ways of thinking of Chris- 
tianity. We may look at it as one religion among others, 
or, we may put it in a class by itself. Most of us have 
been brought up to think of Christianity in the first way. 
We have been taught that it is the supernatural religion, 
in contrast to all other religions as natural. They repre- 
sent man's striving after God. It is God's revelation to 
men. They are the pitiful substitutes devised by a sinful 
race to meet its insistent longing for purity and peace. It 
is the power of God unto salvation to every one that 
believeth, and the only power. It is like a pure white 
flower growing up out of the black mud of a marsh. It is 
like a lamp shining in a dark room and giving light to all 
within reach of its beams. Apart from Christ, the history 
of religion is the record of superstition, failure and 
despair. 

But, there is another way to think of Christianity. 
We may look upon it from without rather than from with- 
in. We may study it critically after the fashion of science, 
comparing it with the other historic religions, of which 
it is one. This is the method taken by the science of 
comparative religion. When we take this position we 
find that it is necessary to soften our contrast. The 
study of other religions reveals unsuspected points of 
contact between them and Christianity. We read the 

201 



202 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

sacred books of the East, and we discover there the ethics 
of Confucius, with their wide social outlook; the mon- 
otheism of Mohammed, with its stern protest against 
idolatry; in the Rig Veda we find worshipers testifying 
to their consciousness of a present God and the joy of 
communion with him. We are touched by the story of 
the Indian Christ, Gautama, the Buddha, with his infinite 
pity for human suffering and his gospel of salvation 
through complete self-sacrifice. 

It is not strange that in the interests of this new dis- 
covery many should have lost their sense of the unique- 
ness of Christianity. What, after all, has the religion of 
Jesus to give which is not found at some place or other 
in the ethnic faiths? Why should we not take the 
common-sense view of this religion as one among others, 
like Buddhism or Confucianism, with the excellences 
and the defects of its kind? By what right do we pro- 
claim it to the world as the universal religion ? 

This question is not simply of interest for scholars; it 
concerns every one of us in the most practical way. Most 
of us are, no doubt, members of the Christian church ; we 
are interested in its missionary activity. Many of us 
give our money to the cause ; some of us have given our 
lives. What exactly is it that we are trying to do? 
What gift do we possess which others have not, which 
we feel constrained to share? I take it that these lec- 
tures had their origin in the effort to reach an intelligent 
answer to these questions. You have not been content 
to take your picture of the ethnic faiths from tradition or 
hearsay; you wish to learn from men who really know 
what Confucius and Buddha and Mohammed taught and 
believed, and what effects these beliefs have upon those 
who have accepted them. You wish to know what they 
have in common with Christianity and wherein they differ, 
in order that you may decide intelligently what you ought 



CHRISTIANITY 203 

to do. The purpose of this particular lecture is to make 
report of progress as far as we have gone. 

I cannot be expected, in the short space at my disposal, 
to tell anything new about Christianity. All that I can 
hope to do is to interpret some of the things which have 
already been learned, to formulate some of the convictions 
which have already begun to form themselves in your 
minds. 

And first, of the points that Christianity has in com- 
mon with other religions. Christianity, we are agreed, 
is a historical religion. It grew up at a definite time and 
place, under certain definite conditions. It had ante- 
cedents, both inward and outward. It has had a complex 
history, in which it has touched many different forces, 
upon which it has acted and by which it has been in- 
fluenced in turn. It appears to-day in many different 
forms. You are to hear of these forms in some of the 
lectures that follow. Some of these, it is easy to show, 
are the result of its appropriation of habits and ideas 
which it found already in existence before it. I need 
only remind you how much the Roman Church has bor- 
rowed from the great empire from which it has inherited 
its name. Our question, then, — what Christianity has 
in common with other faiths, — is legitimate ; indeed, it 
is inevitable. 

At one point this common element appears so plainly 
that it cannot be overlooked. Last week Rabbi Grossman 
spoke to you of the principles and ideals of Judaism. 
You must have felt, I am sure, as you listened to him, that 
the path along which he led you was very familiar 
ground ; much, possibly all, that he claimed as Jewish you 
accepted as Christian. How, indeed, could it be other- 
wise? Jesus Himself was a Jew, and His spiritual life 
was nourished on the writings of Isaiah and Jeremiah 
and the Psalms. The God they proclaimed He recognized 



204 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

as His father. He was conscious of being the Messiah 
for whose coming they were looking. When the disciples 
accepted Jesus, therefore, that acceptance carried with 
it the Old Testament. They bound it up with their own 
new scriptures as part of the Christian book. They 
passed it on to their converts in Greece and Rome, as they 
have been doing ever since in the wider missionary enter- 
prise in which they are engaged. Isaiah and Amos are 
still proclaiming their gospel of social righteousness from 
Christian pulpits, only now the audience that they address 
has expanded until it takes in the whole known world. 

At the risk of repetition, let me remind you for a 
moment of some of the points which Christianity has in 
common with Judaism. There is, first of all, its ethical 
monotheism. " Lift up your eyes on high, and see who 
hath created these, that bringeth out their hosts by num- 
ber. He calleth them all by name. For the greatness 
of His might, and for that He is strong in power ; not 
one of them is lacking.'' (Isai. 40, 25, 26.) "And 
Jehovah passed before Moses and proclaimed Jehovah, 
a God full of compassion, and gracious, slow to anger 
and plenteous in mercy and truth, keeping mercy for 
thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin, and 
that will by no means clear the guilty." (Ex. 34, 6-8.) 
These are utterances taken from the Hebrew scriptures, 
but they describe the Christian God. 

There is, further, the ideal of social righteousness. 
" To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices 
unto me," saith Jehovah. " When ye come to appear 
before me who hath required this of you, to trample my 
courts ? Wash you ; make you clean ; put away the evil 
of your doings from before mine eyes. Cease to do evil ; 
learn to do well. Relieve the oppressed ; judge the father- 
less; plead for the widow." (Isai. 1, 12, 16, 17.) It is 



CHRISTIANITY 205 

Isaiah who is speaking, but the principles are the princi- 
ples of Jesus. 

And again, there is the assurance of the ultimate 
triumph of the good : " And it shall come to pass in the 
latter days that Jehovah shall judge between the nations, 
and shall decide concerning many peoples, and they shall 
beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into 
pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against 
nation, neither shall they learn war any more." (Isai. 
2, 2-4.) Our Christian dream of social justice and uni- 
versal peace has a long history, it seems. Eight hundred 
years before Jesus we find the Hebrew prophet proclaim- 
ing it. 

And so we might go on with our illustration, if there 
were need. It is sometimes said that the God of the 
Old Testament is a God of righteousness and not of love, 
but when to-day we wish to express our Christian faith 
in the forgiving Father where do we go? Again to the 
Old Testament, — " Like as a father pitieth his children, 
so Jehovah pitieth them that fear Him." (Ps. 103, 13.) 
" Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should 
not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, these 
may forget, yet will not I forget thee." (Isai. 49, 15.) 

It is sometimes said that Judaism is a national religion, 
that it does not recognize the relation between God and 
the individual ; and yet for two thousand years, when 
Christians have wished an expression of their most pri- 
vate and personal experience, they have sought it in the 
Psalms : " He who dwelleth in the secret place of the 
Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Al- 
mighty." (Ps. 91, 1, 2.) "The sacrifices of God are a 
contrite spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, 
thou wilt not despise." (Ps. 51, 17.) 

Even the universalism of Christianity is anticipated in 
the prophets. In the 19th chapter of Isaiah, Egypt and 



206 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

Assyria, the old oppressors that had ground the Hebrew 
people in the dust take their place with Israel as sons of 
God. " In that day shall Israel be the third with Egypt 
and with Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth; 
for that Jehovah of hosts has blessed them, saying, 
' Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work 
of my hands, and Israel mine inheritance/ " (Is. 19, 24, 

25-) 

I have lingered so long over the relation between Chris- 
tianity and Judaism because the principle which it illus- 
trates is capable of wider application. What is true of 
the relation of Christianity and Judaism may have its 
parallel in other religions also. Their relation too may be 
positive as well as negative. The study of comparative 
religion is showing us that, as a matter of fact, this is 
the case. The roots of the white flower reach far into the 
common soil, and it draws its nourishment from ethnic 
as well as from Jewish faith. 

Thus, through Judaism Christianity is brought into con- 
tact with that group of older religions to which Israel 
itself owes so much. Babylon has left its trace upon He- 
brew legislation and cosmogony. Persia deepened Israel's 
consciousness of the inevitable conflict between good and 
evil, and when the earthly stage proved too brief for the 
conclusion of so mighty a drama, lent its resurrection faith 
to reinforce the assurance of final victory. In the case of 
Egypt, the influence is less certain and the relationship 
more obscure. 

When we turn to Greece, however, we are on surer 
ground. Here the dependence of Christianity is clear. 
We find it already in the New Testament, in the " Logos " 
doctrine of the fourth gospel, and the Christology of He- 
brews, if not of Paul. If it be said this is form only and 
not substance, still it is true that Greece has furnished the 
form. " In the beginning was the Word, and the Word 



CHRISTIANITY 207 

was with God, and the Word was God." (John 1, 1.) 
The old term which the Greek philosophers used to express 
their faith in the revealing activity of the infinite spirit, 
seemed to Christians fitly to describe their own faith in 
the God who had made himself known to them in Jesus, 
— • " And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, 
and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten 
from the Father, full of grace and truth." (John 1, 14.) 

As we go on the influence becomes clearer and more 
extensive. The first systematic theologian of Christianity 
was a Greek philosopher, and his lecture rooms at Alex- 
andria were crowded with men who had received their 
training in the schools. Greek thought furnished the 
words in which the great Christian creeds are written, 
and the Greek mysteries have left their impress upon the 
sacramental system of the rising Catholic Church. 

It cannot be denied that this influence had its evil side 
as well as its good. To the Greek spirit must be traced 
the rise of that curious perversion which identifies faith 
with orthodoxy. Here, too, is the source of that intro- 
spective otherworldly religion which filled the desert 
with hermits, and made men think that they could serve 
God better in a cell than at home or at their trade. Some 
earnest men have felt these evils so keenly that they have 
had no eyes for the good in the Greek religion. It has 
been to them a corrupting influence and nothing more. 
They would have us purge this Greek leaven out of our 
Christianity, even if the process takes us into the New 
Testament itself. 

What would Christianity be like if we were to take their 
advice? It is not hard to answer. Some of you doubt- 
less have read President Eliot's famous address on the 
" Religion of the Future." It is the picture of a Chris- 
tianity which has actually undergone this process of pur- 
gation. The mystic and otherworldly elements have 



208 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

vanished. All is simple, plain and practical. There is no 
divine Christ entering the world from a heavenly sphere 
to make atonement for our sin. There is only a man 
walking among His fellow-men, preaching the gospel of 
helpfulness and service, and offering to those who are 
bowed down with the burden of their suffering and sin 
the hope of a day when, through the united effort of all 
men of goodwill, there will be less sorrow and sin in the 
world than at present. Can we really believe that this 
will be the religion of the future ? If so, it will be very 
unlike the religion of the past. 

In the same number of the Harvard Theological Re- 
view which contained President Eliot's article, there ap- 
peared side by side with it another article on the same 
subject. It was by one of President Eliot's colleagues, 
Professor Royce, one of the oldest members of the 
philosophical faculty of Harvard, and it is called " What 
is Vital in Christianity." While it has not received the 
same amount of public notice as President Eliot's article, 
for our present purpose it is no less worthy of attention. 

To Professor Royce the vital elements in Christianity 
are the very ones that President Eliot leaves out. They 
are the doctrines of the incarnation and atonement, or, 
to speak more exactly, they are the experiences which 
underlie and explain these doctrines. To be a Christian, 
as Professor Royce conceives it, means to commune with 
the infinite spirit, and so share His divine life. The eter- 
nal God has entered our world of limitation and hnite- 
ness in order that He may share our experience of sorrow 
and imperfection, bear our burdens, atone for our sins 
and, through His own triumph over them, win for us that 
union with Himself which constitutes salvation. The hu- 
man Jesus is a very winning and gracious figure, but He 
adds nothing essential to the ethical teachings of the He- 
brew prophets. There is nothing in His story, taken by 



CHRISTIANITY 209 

itself, which could account for the experiences of a Paul 
or an Augustine or a Luther. To understand the Chris- 
tianity of history, the Christianity that has conquered 
nations and enthroned itself in the hearts of men, we must 
turn to the epistles rather than to the gospels, and become 
acquainted with the Christ of Paul and John, — God 
manifest in the flesh for our salvation. 

Here is food for thought. At the very moment when 
President Eliot is declaring that the religion of the future 
can dispense with the metaphysical doctrines that owe 
their formulation to Greece, one of his own colleagues 
declares that to him Christianity means these or nothing. 
How shall we account for this apparent contradiction? 
Those who, like yourselves, have studied the history of 
religion, will have no difficulity in finding an answer. We 
have to do here with two contrasted types, each as old as 
humanity and as immortal. Some men approach religion 
naturally, in the spirit of Professor Royce, and some men 
in the spirit of President Eliot. Every religion has its 
mystics and its humanitarians, its men of contemplative 
spirit whose eyes are turned inward and whose ears are 
attuned to the whispering of that unseen spirit, whose 
inbreathing is the breath of their life, and its prophets of 
social righteousness, like Isaiah and Amos, denouncing 
the oppression of the poor, and calling for justice and 
mercy as the true sacrifices which were acceptable to God. 
In some religions one of these types predominates over 
the other. Gautama was a man of the first type, and Con- 
fucius and Mohammed men of the second. But there is 
no great religion in which both types have not been rep- 
resented. They are in religion because they are first in 
life. 

We cannot agree, then, with those who regard the in- 
fluence of Greece upon Christianity as a misfortune. 
Rather we must see in it a necessary step in that many- 



210 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

sided preparation by which it was fitted for its worldwide 
work. The mystical element in Christianity may be a 
stumbling block to the Mohammedan, but it is a help to 
the Hindu. It expresses a type of experience with which 
he is familiar. He finds its counterpart in his own sacred 
books. It is the open door through which, like many 
a Greek Christian before him, he can pass over easily 
from his own faith to the discipleship of Christ. 

This is not a matter of theory. It is a record of fact. 
When my honored friend and colleague, the late lamented 
President Charles Cuthbert Hall, sought a point of con- 
tact for his appeal to the Indian mind, he found it in the 
mystical element in Christianity. 

I say they are passing over to the discipleship of Jesus, 
and with this I touch the other side of my subject, the 
distinctive element in the Christian religion, the new 
thing which it has to offer to men of other faiths. What is 
this new thing? The answer is very simple: it is Jesus 
Himself. In this single word we may sum up a century 
of study. Jesus is the new thing in Christianity. His 
spirit is the genius of the Christian religion, His 
personality its contribution to universal religion. 

But this answer, like most simple answers, needs to be 
expanded. In what sense is Jesus central in Christianity ? 
When we offer Him to men of other faiths, what do we 
give? What do we expect them to receive from Jesus? 
What effect do we hope this acceptance may produce up- 
on their lives ? What change will it make in their faith ? 

To answer these questions we must go back for a mo- 
ment to the beginnings of Christianity, and ask what 
Jesus meant to the first disciples. Two things they found 
in Him, — a new standard of conduct and a new point of 
contact with God; and it is these which His disciples have 
been finding in Him ever since. 

They found a new standard of conduct. From one 



CHRISTIANITY 211 

point of view Professor Royce is quite right in saying that 
there is little new in the ethics of Jesus. Most of His say- 
ings, as we have seen, can be paralleled elsewhere. He 
Himself declared that He had not come to destroy the law, 
but to fulfil. But Jesus gave something better than a 
teaching, and that was a character. He not only told men 
that they ought to love one another, but He showed them 
in His own life what it means to love. He not only told 
them that they ought to trust God ; He lived before them 
the life of trust. His own person was the incarnation of 
His teaching; In His presence goodness became more 
winning and selfishness more repellent. There was a con- 
tagion in His example that helped men to be better. 

It has been so ever since. The character of Jesus has 
been the moral dynamic of Christianity. It has been the 
standard which Christians have ever held up for imita- 
tion. It has been the inspiration of their noblest living. 
When the church has grown cold and selfish and worldly, 
renewed contact with Jesus has recalled her to her duty. 
John Stuart Mill was no Christian, but he has left on rec- 
ord as the summary of his own life-work in ethics this con- 
viction, that even to-day it would not be easy to find a 
better translation of the rule of virtue, from the abstract 
to the concrete, than to bid men " So live as Jesus would 
approve." Ethical systems come and go; His character 
still retains its persuasive power. 

But the first Christians found more in Jesus than a 
standard of conduct. Through Him they were conscious 
of a new point of contact with God. He was not merely 
their master but their savior, — the revelation of God in 
human form, the one through whom they were conscious 
of receiving assurance, forgiveness and peace. 

This conviction, too, goes back to the beginnings. It 
is as evident in the gospels as in the epistles, in the synop- 
tics as in John. The most rigorous criticism fails to dis- 



212 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

lodge it. From the first Jesus had to His disciples a divine 
as well as a human meaning. Through Him they felt 
that the unseen God had drawn near to them for salvation. 
This consciousness finds expression in different ways. To 
Peter Jesus is the Messiah whom the Jews have long 
been expecting; to the writer of the Acts He is the risen 
Saviour ; to Paul and John He is the pre-existent Christ, 
the Son Who existed in the form of God, the Word Who 
was with God from the beginning. The form is that 
naturally suggested by the thought of the time, but the 
experience is one familiar to every vital religion, — the 
contact of the soul with God in personal salvation. 

This experience, too, has been characteristic of Chris- 
tianity throughout its entire history. The theological ex- 
pression has changed with the changing environment, but 
the conviction has not been outgrown. In Jesus Christians 
still find the clearest revelation of God; the most direct 
point of contact between God and the world. His per- 
son gives content to the Christian thought of God. When 
we wish to show men what the unseen Father is like, we 
point them to Him. 

The person of Jesus, then, I repeat, is the chief con- 
tribution of Christianity to universal religion. Everything 
else that our religion possesses may be paralleled else- 
where, but there is no second Jesus. Not all men will find 
the same thing in Him, and not every one will express that 
which he finds in the same way. Men of one type will be 
drawn to the prophet of social righteousness; men of 
another type will find their point of approach through 
the divine redeemer, but every one will find something 
that he needs. We shall be wise if we do not try to force 
our own view too much. We can afford to trust the God 
who has revealed Himself to us to make Himself known to 
others in His own way. Our duty is to share the best 
we have ; the rest belongs to God. 



CHRISTIANITY 213 

If Jesus Christ is a man, 

And only a man — I say, 
That of all mankind I cleave to him, 

And to him will I cleave alway. 

If Jesus Christ is a God, 

And the only God, I swear, 
I will follow him through heaven and hell, 

The earth, the sea, and the air. 

Thank God, we do not have to make the choice. In 
Jesus Christianity offers us both the ideal man and the su- 
preme revelation of God, and on this fact we base our con- 
fidence that it will prove the universal religion. 



XIV 

ROMAN CATHOLICISM 

By Andrew J. Shipman, A.M. 

Director, Catholic Encyclopedia ; Vice-President, Catholic Club 

To condense into the space at my disposal the history 
and development of the Catholic church for nineteen cen- 
turies is obviously a task almost impossible of accomplish- 
ment. If aught in my treatment of the subject appears 
as an omission or curtailment of matters which properly 
require fuller discussion, it is because I can give but an 
outline, — simply touch upon the great peaks of interest 
which dominate the doctrines and conception of Cathol- 
icism. 

It has always appeared to me that where men differed 
upon vital and substantial things, little good could be 
accomplished either by vituperation, by epithet or by 
intensifying and accenting the points wherein they differed 
without so much as an allusion to the numerous other 
things in which they might be in some sort of accord. 
There is no need of evading such differences or of failing 
to state the reasons and argumentation for one's own view 
of them ; but they need not be so disproportionately stated 
as to obscure the points upon which we can be heartily 
in unison, or at least in which we can fairly understand 
one another. 

We are Catholics, and have no objection to being called 
Roman Catholics by any one who wishes to so exactly 
label us. But we do resent the names sometimes used, 
such as Papist, Romanist and Romish, for the very simple 

214 



ROMAN CATHOLICISM 215 

reason that they are thus used as expressions of contempt 
and are intended to wound. Their use, thank God, is 
getting rarer and rarer, and all generous-minded Amer- 
icans are too noble to fight their battles with adjectives 
where facts and argument are needed instead. 

We are Catholics because we are of the one, great, uni- 
versal church of Jesus Christ, spread throughout all the 
ages since His death on Calvary, and spread throughout 
the world in every nation, land and clime; and we are 
Roman because we follow the Roman rite or form of 
worship and are always and everywhere united with the 
See of Rome as the centre of union and of authority. 
But as the word " Roman " is not always coterminous 
with " Catholic," I for my part shall Use the word 
" Catholic " throughout this address. 

All Catholics are not of the Roman rite, although they 
are all in communion with the Holy See at Rome. We 
have some ten million Oriental Catholics, — Greek 
Catholics, Armenian Catholics, Maronite Catholics and 
others, — who do not follow the Roman rite or worship at 
all, but follow their own peculiar forms of worship, yet 
their faith is the same. As an example, we have in New 
York not only Roman Catholics, but also Greek Catholics, 
four churches; Armenian Catholics, one church; Syrian 
Catholics, two churches; — all united in one faith but 
differing in their rites and ceremonies of worship. The 
Greek Orthodox church broke away from the unity of the 
church nearly nyie hundred years ago, but all the Greeks 
did not go with them. Many remained Catholics and 
many more returned to the faith. In America we have 
a flourishing Greek Catholic church spread throughout 
the United States, and twice as large as the Greek 
Orthodox church here, whose representative will follow 
me upon this platform. The Greek Orthodox church is 
opposed to the Greek Catholic church, although they both 



216 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

use the same language in worship and the same forms 
of liturgy. But the Catholic church, whether Greek or 
Roman in form of worship, is one in faith and organiza- 
tion, while the Greek Orthodox differs from it in faith 
and is disunited in its own organization. 

If we were asked suddenly to point to the one body 
which was obviously the church of Christ, a sudden glance 
throughout the world must be that it was the Catholic 
church, for that looms larger than any other Christian 
organization. If one were asked what church has given 
the greatest inspiration for art, literature, poetry and 
romance, one could find none other than the Catholic 
church. Look at the imagery for stern resolves, heroic 
deeds, knighthood, chivalry, renunciation, prayer and 
sacrifice, and you will find the sole fount of inspiration for 
the pen, the brush or the chisel has been the Catholic 
church. It is woven into the warp and the woof of all 
nations, all languages and all centuries since Christendom, 
and has become part of the nearest and dearest to our 
hearts, whether we believe its doctrines or no, — just as 
the word " Christmas " brings up the memories of 
Bethlehem and with it the Christ-Mass of the Catholic 
church. 

But even take sterner things. Against what church 
body do the rulers and the nations of the whole earth, 
when they are antagonistic to Christianity, first rage and 
seek to destroy? What church has just suffered the 
entire loss of all its temporal goods rather than abate one 
jot of its principles of unity and right to teach its faith 
unhampered by the state? Turn where you will, whether 
in Europe, Asia, Africa or America, and notice what one 
particular church body is everywhere the universal target 
of objection or opposition among those who minimize, 
deny or flout all revelation from God, who advance 
theories subversive of moral or civil order, who teach 



ROMAN CATHOLICISM 



217 



doctrines intended to extinguish the light which the 
Christian religion has shed upon all nations, and you will 
find by a comparison that the body first attacked is the 
Catholic church. 

As the church which Jesus Christ founded could not 
hope to escape opposition and persecution any more than 
its Divine Founder, the observation of these things must 
tend to the conclusion that the Catholic church in its 
present, in its historical and in its universal attitude as 
more nearly fitting the representative church of Christ 
than any other body on the face of the globe. This I 
know is a purely negative view of the proposition, and I 
will not assume that it proves anything; but it is a 
sufficiently striking view to have us give respectful con- 
sideration to the teaching, constitution and claims of the 
Catholic church. 

If I were asked to say what attitude the Catholic 
church most insistently as- 
sumes in these United 
States, and what lies clos- 
est to her heart of hearts, 
I could not find a more 
fitting or a more striking 
answer than in this chart. 
It is taken from Bulletin 
No. 103 of the Census, 
and concerns the statistics 
of Religious Bodies in the 
United States, taken by the government in the year 1906. 
It deals with all the Protestant churches collectively, 
grouping them under one combined heading. They have 
within all their respective folds less than one-quarter 
(actually 24. 1 per cent.) of the population of these con- 
tinental United States. The Catholic church has less than 
fifteen per cent, (actually 14.3 per cent.), whilst the 




218 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

Jews, the Orthodox Greeks and others hold but 7 per mill 
of the entire population. All of these taken together 
make up but 39. 1 per cent, of the population, or say about 
32,940,000 souls. This leaves, out of a population of 
84,250,000, as shown by that census, some 51,310,000 per- 
sons who are without any church connections whatever, 
and, for aught that I know, have little or no knowledge 
of their Saviour and Redeemer, or of any God or any 
religion. There lies the field, the harvest is ripe ; and the 
very best efforts can be put forth in that wide territory of 
homeless souls without unnecessary friction or crossing 
of paths. It is that wide field, filled with human eager 
souls varying all the way from mild indifference and 
ignorance to virulent animosity to Christ and His faith, 
which the Catholic church is most eager to reach. It is 
a matter of the deepest heartfelt concern to us, and it 
ought not to fail to be of importance to all. 

In the ancient creed, the test or description of the church 
founded by our Lord was : " I believe in one holy Catholic 
and Apostolic church." That is but a duplication of St. 
Paul's definition : " Be careful to keep the unity of the 
Spirit in the bond of peace, one body and one spirit, as 
you are called in one hope of your calling ; one Lord, one 
faith and one baptism ; " 1 and this is but an amplification 
of our Lord's very words : " And there shall be one fold 
and one shepherd." 2 

In the whole wide world to-day or yesterday there 
is and was but one Christian body which answers to the 
test of unity. Search throughout the world from the 
uttermost bounds of the East to the furthermost confines of 
the West, and we shall find but one Christian church 
which is everywhere and being everywhere is united. 
Wherever we find the Catholic church in America it is 

1 Eph. iv, 3-5. 2 John x, 16, 



ROMAN CATHOLICISM 219 

united in one body, it teaches one faith, it acknowledges 
one baptism. If we find it in England, Ireland, France, 
Belgium, Holland, Scandinavia, Germany, Russia, Austria, 
Italy, Spain or Turkey, or in Asia, Africa or Oceanica, it 
is the same. It everywhere teaches the same doctrine; 
it is everywhere in unity and in unison. 

Nowhere else in the wide world can one discover a 
similar phenomenon. And as it is to-day so it was yester- 
day and throughout the centuries. Those who have left 
the church have always cast off something, either of 
doctrine or of government. They have failed either in 
unity of organization or in unity of doctrine and teaching. 
But all through the pages of history back to the very 
beginnings of the church the note of unity sounds through 
the ages as the kit motif of the Catholic church, and of 
the Catholic church alone. In the Mass, the priest since 
the first ages of the church has always prayed : " Thy 
holy Catholic church, which do Thou vouchsafe to pacify, 
guard, unite and govern throughout the whole world," 
and that prayer goes up unceasingly every day from her 
altars in every land. No other religion of ancient or 
modern times, pagan, monotheistic or Christian (except 
perhaps the venerable Jewish church when its priesthood 
and altar existed), has or ever had that mark of unity. 
They have not tried to live up to " One body, one spirit, 
one Lord, one faith and one baptism." Even now, in our 
own day, when most of us are tolerant of one another, 
denominations professing the same identical faith fail to 
get together in corporate union, while those that have 
but a hair's breadth between them stand rigidly aloof. 

In no other Christian assembly at any time in the pages 
of history has there ever been such a wide diversity of 
peoples, races, divergent political views and national 
jealousies and antipathies among the inhabitants of the 
earth so welded together and so knit into one, as the 



220 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

Catholic church exhibits. It alone among all the Christian 
faiths is truly Catholic, — truly universal, — spread 
worldwide in every land and people, no matter how 
antagonistic they be to one another; and it alone is one 
in the faith which it teaches and in the government which 
it obeys in spiritual things. 

Nor does its Catholicity and unity stop here. Its faith 
teaches that the church, the Spouse of Christ, is one now 
and hereafter. It spreads from this world to the next; 
and the church triumphant, in the splendid vision and 
glorious communion with the Triune God, the church 
suffering, at the door of beatific rest and eternal light, 
awaiting entrance into the fulness of the vision and glory 
of God, and the church visible and militant battling here 
with sin on earth are all one, — one and the same church. 
We and they are knit together in a bond of union so strong 
and so close that our prayers help those who have not yet 
attained to the vision and the rest and the glory of God, 
while that great " white-robed army of martyrs " and the 
other saints who have attained to everlasting happiness 
help us poor mortals who are struggling here in this valley 
of tears. 

We are all one, the blessed in heaven, the suffering at 
the door of heaven, and we who follow their footsteps; 
and our brethren who have gone before us help us with 
their prayers at the Throne of Grace, exactly as they 
would have done were they here now on earth beside us 
in our hour of struggle. And we help our brethren who 
need our prayers (as they would in turn were they kneel- 
ing here beside us, and as we would help them here), that 
they may the sooner be with the blessed brotherhood, the 
church triumphant, before the Throne. This unity and 
Catholicity is not only the unity that reaches around the 
world, the Catholicity that spreads through all ages, all 
races and all climes, but it is a unity and Catholicity that 



ROMAN CATHOLICISM 221 

reaches across the valley of death and carries us along the 
serried ranks of the saints clear up to the everlasting 
Throne of God. 

The Catholic church teaches absolutely, wholly and com- 
pletely the doctrine of God the Trinity, Father, Son and 
Holy Ghost, and that the second person of the Blessed 
Trinity, God the Son, abased Himself into a creature and 
was made flesh, — being at the same time true man and 
true God, — for our redemption and salvation, and con- 
summated that incarnation by His crucifixion and death 
upon Mount Calvary. It confesses with Saint Peter with 
trumpet tones that " There is no other name under heaven 
given to men, whereby we may be saved." x The incarna- 
tion of our Lord Jesus Christ is the central point of 
Catholic theology and doctrine. It is not merely a feeble 
assent to the divinity of our Lord ; it is the emphatic 
affirmance upon every occasion, at every ceremony and 
form of worship, nay, throughout the very hours of every 
day, that God became man for our salvation and for our 
lifting up to supernatural life. Not only do we say the 
prayer which our Lord himself taught us, — " Our Father, 
Who art in heaven," — but we say in commemoration of 
the fact that our Lord God became man the words with 
which He sent that message to the tender young maiden 
who was to bear Him into this world, and the very first 
salutation of that fact before He was even born. 

Like the Archangel Gabriel and Saint Elizabeth we say : 
" Hail Mary, full of grace ; the Lord is with Thee ; 
blessed art thou among women, 2 and blessed is the fruit 
of thy womb, Jesus; " 3 and the venerable Greek Catholic 
church adds, " For thou hast borne the Saviour of our 
souls ; " and the venerable Roman church adds : " Hail 
Mary, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our 
death." We say it in humble acknowledgment of the 
1 Acts iv, 12. 2 Luke i, 28. 3 Luke i, 42. 



222 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

mystery of God made manifest in the flesh. All have 
heard of the " Angelus," — Millet's celebrated picture is 
enough to impress the idea upon every one. The Angelus 
is the prayer ordered by the church to be said three 
times a day, morning, noon and night, to bring home to 
every Christian the incarnation of our Blessed Redeemer. 
The Angelus, which is almost wholly extracted from the 
gospels, is said as follows: 

" The Angel of the Lord declared unto Mary ; and she 
conceived by the Holy Ghost," — and then the " Hail 
Mary " is said. 

" Behold the handmaid of the Lord : be it done unto 
me according unto Thy word," — and then the " Hail 
Mary " is said again. 

" And the Word was made flesh ; and dwelt among 
us," — and then the " Hail Mary " is said again. And 
then this prayer concludes: 

" Pour forth, we beseech Thee, O Lord, Thy grace into our hearts, 
that we, to whom the incarnation of Christ thy Son was made known 
by the message of an angel, may by His passion and cross be brought 
to the glory of His resurrection. Through the same Jesus Christ our 
Lord. Amen." 

These are the prayers which the peasants in Millet's 
picture are saying as they stand with bared heads at even- 
tide. 

Therefore the teaching of the church is not merely the 
divinity of Christ, as that might mean merely a human 
mask instead of a real humanity. It is more than that 
expression ; it is God himself taking on our poor humanity, 
and thereby raising our weak human nature and frailty 
up to the splendid heights of God Himself. He became 
our brother and one of us, human as we are in all except 
sin, and His mother is our mother, even as He commended 
her to be our mother to the sole apostle at the foot of the 



ROMAN CATHOLICISM 223 

cross when He was dying, His brethren are our brethren, 
His friends are our friends, — and we without abating 
one jot or tittle of our worship, love or adoration of God 
the Son, ask His mother and His saints to intercede and 
pray for us, just as we would in the human family, of 
which He is our elder brother and head, turn to them to 
help us in our straits and needs. He is forever God and 
man, for in His ascension and glorious reign in heaven 
He has forever raised manhood up until it touches the 
hem of divinity. As the God-Man, as the Word made 
Flesh, He may be approached both as God and man, 
exactly as if He walked the earth to-day. And the priest 
repeats at the altar as he lifts his hands daily in commenc- 
ing the great sacrifice of the Mass : 

" O God, who hast wonderfully framed man's exalted nature and still 
more wonderfully restored it, grant us to become partakers of His God- 
head who hath vouchsafed to become partaker of our manhood : our 
Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, who liveth and reigneth with Thee in 
unity with the Holy Ghost, world without end." 

If, therefore, we pray to the Blessed Virgin Mary or to 
the saints, it is only because of and through the incarna- 
tion of our Lord Jesus Christ. We worship Him, we 
acknowledge Him, we confess Him to be God, our Saviour 
and Redeemer; but we love Him, approach Him and 
cling tenderly to Him as man, — as our brother, — and 
we fervently ask all His nearest and dearest as men to 
to unite with our petitions, to assist us with their prayers, 
to have the whole triumphant church in heaven with the 
greatest of mankind at their head ring with a triumphant 
human unison in accord with our petitions here below. It 
is the humanity of Jesus Christ that we acknowledge and 
glorify when we ask all created saved humanity to join 
with us in our petitions to Him. 

The incarnation, then, is the center and kernel of 



224 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

Catholic faith; all else is a consequence and corollary of 
it. The passion and death of our Lord is His drinking 
the bitter wine of humanity to the very dregs; it is the 
continuation and consummation of His becoming man for 
our salvation. He took upon Himself the sins of the 
world as the last experience in taking upon Himself the 
flesh and soul of humanity, and He so identified Himself 
with our human life from the cradle to the grave, from 
the wedding feast of Cana to that ghastly climb up 
Calvary's hill with death at its summit. He is ours from 
a human standpoint, as well as from a divine one, inex- 
tricably and inseparably mingled together forever as God 
and man, to be loved and approached from either side. 

The church never forgets for a moment the sacrifice 
upon Calvary. Not an instant of prayer is she without 
its remembrance, — the sign of the cross is the beginning 
and ending of all of them; she puts the cross constantly 
before us upon her churches, books and vestments, and 
unceasingly bids us remember the crucified Saviour. In 
commemoration of the day upon which He suffered with- 
out food or drink, she bids us abstain from flesh meat 
on that day in each week as some slight denial of pleasure 
to ourselves in reminder thereof. By teaching and 
precept the church keeps ever before us the culminating 
act of the redemption of the world. 

It is obvious to every one that the human work of mak- 
ing known the incarnation and teaching of our Lord must 
be intrusted to some human society or organization. This 
society or organization, if it is really to carry this knowl- 
edge to all men, in all ages and in all lands, must be 
protected against error and must be one in its teaching. 
If it be not protected against error, then those who live 
after Christ or away from the Saviour's voice and personal 
presence are indeed in a perilous condition, since they 
have no sure means of ascertaining what His teaching was. 



ROMAN CATHOLICISM 225 

And if this organization is not one in its teaching, then 
the faith and religion of Christ becomes little more than 
a philosophical school of thought or a doctrine of eco- 
nomics, varying with each person, each age and each 
locality. 

We Catholics declare and affirm that just such a society 
was established to effectively carry the news of the incar- 
nation and teachings of our Lord to the uttermost ends of 
the earth and throughout all ages. Our Lord gave it an 
enduring charter : " All power is give to me in heaven 
and earth. Go therefore and teach all nations, baptizing 
them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy 
Ghost. Teach them to observe all things whatsoever I 
have cormnanded you : and behold, I am with you always 
even until the end of the world." * 

This is what we mean by the Catholic church. Like 
all human societies it has a human president or chief, and 
our Lord provided that chief in the most emphatic 
manner. I do not wish to take up space quoting texts, 
but the sublime declaration of Christ ought to be held in 
mind: 

" Blessed art thou, Simon, the son of John, and I say unto thee that 
thou art Peter ; and upon this rock I will build my church, and the 
gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the 
keys of the kingdom of heaven ; and whatsoever thou shalt bind upon 
earth shall be bound in heaven ; and whatsoever thou shalt loose upon 
earth shall be loosed in heaven." 2 

It is a declaration of position and power never vouch- 
safed to any other apostle. Simon the fisherman was 
not the first of the apostles in time, for Andrew was first 
called ; nor the first in love, for John was the well-beloved ; 
nor the most steadfast, for he denied his master. Yet he 
was the only apostle whose name was changed by our 

1 Matth. xxviii, 18-20. 2 Matth. xvi, 16-19. 



226 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

Lord, and a specific reason given for that change. Even 
with the same breath in which He foretells Peter's denial 
of him, our Lord prophesies that his faith will fail not and 
gives him charge of his brethren. His charge over his 
brethren and the church is repeated even after the resur- 
rection. As our Lord and the Holy Ghost were to be 
with the church until the end of the world, these preroga- 
tives descended to the successors in the teaching body of 
the church, and the special prerogatives of Peter 
descended to his successors in office. Otherwise they 
were useless; and most of all to those who have lived 
since the days of the apostles, if they ended with them. 

Even as the primitive society or church sent out to 
teach all nations had Peter at its head, so it has continued 
ever since. The teaching body of the church has deacons, 
priests and bishops, and as the Chief Bishop of them all, 
the great Bishop of the West, the Pope of Rome. He 
is the successor of Saint Peter as testified in every liturgy, 
menology and every church history from the earliest 
times. He is the center and focus of church authority. 
I have not the time to discuss the successive history and 
organization of the church, although I would gladly do 
so, or describe its battles for the establishment of the king- 
dom of God upon earth. 

Still a word may be said of the great prerogative, — the 
flower and blossom of the promise of Christ that " The 
gates of hell shall not prevail against it, and I will give 
unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven," — the 
infallibility of the Pope. " Infallibility " does not mean 
that the Pope is sinless, or incapable of sin; or even, to 
use an extreme illustration, that he can write a book on 
theology wholly free from error; or that he can decide 
without mistake upon matters of science, history, art or 
politics. It is confined to his solemn official judgments 
on matters of faith and morals when he gives judgment, 



ROMAN CATHOLICISM i2j 

sitting as the teacher of the one, the universal church. 
The Pope cannot add to the deposit of faith or subtract 
from it. But when there arises among the teachers of the 
church a controversy which alleges on the one hand that 
a certain doctrine is of the faith, and on the other hand 
that it is not of the faith, the decision of the Pope sitting 
in his capacity as the Chief Bishop and Teacher of the 
whole Universal Church is unalterable and conclusive. 
The word " infallibility " means that his decision will 
not fail to be the correct one, as carrying out the promise 
of our Lord : " Simon, Simon, I have prayed for thee 
that thy faith fail not," 1 under the guidance of the Holy 
Ghost, " The Spirit of truth, who will teach you all 
truth." 2 

The Catholic church comes immediately in contact with 
the world through her preaching and her sacraments. 
In these she knows neither race, color or civil condition ; 
all sorts and conditions of men are alike at her shrines. 
She has been called the church of the poor and ignorant. 
Well, so she is; they are the very kind of persons with 
whom our Lord associated. She has been reproached for 
cultivating the rich and the powerful; but He also was 
the honored guest and associate of rich men and rulers. 
She has as many learned men as any other organization in 
the world, but their learning is for the supreme end of 
saving souls and not for earning distinction as erudite 
scholars. The prince, the savant and the beggar meet 
together at her altar rail ; one can find it so here in this 
very city or in any of the statelier shrines of the old world ; 
and I myself have taken communion in a resplendent 
church kneeling at the altar rail between a negro and a 
longshoreman, and in a magnificent cathedral a Bedouin of 
the desert has entered and worshiped beside me. Within 

1 Luke xxii, 31-32. a John xvi, 13. 



228 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

those hallowed walls we were all equal citizens of the 
Kingdom of God. 

Upon this great body of worshipers the church brings 
to bear her great sources of dynamic power, — the Sun- 
day Mass with its accompanying sermon or familiar 
instruction, the confessional and Holy Communion. 
These are the main batteries of the church in her warfare 
against sin. They are the means on which she relies to 
build up strong spiritual lives in her children. The other 
sacraments are all needful, but she puts these at the 
forefront. 

Every Catholic is obliged under pain of serious sin to 
be present at Mass every Sunday unless prevented by a 
good reason. So it is that rain or shine, in heat or in 
cold, our churches are crowded every Sunday. To 
Catholics the Mass, whether celebrated amid all the im- 
posing solemnity of cathedral appurtenances or whether 
offered in an unadorned chapel of a backwoods village, 
is the highest and greatest act of worship. We believe 
that Christ Himself becomes present on the altar and 
blesses us and all we hold dear. There before the altar 
we are the equals of the multitude that daily saw Jesus 
when He walked and taught. He Himself said the sacra- 
ment was His body and He was God, the creator of all 
things. No man sincerely believing this doctrine can go 
back to his home and the duties of the week without 
comfort, courage and high resolve. 

Every Sunday there is at the low Masses, which are so 
called because they are said in a low tone without music 
usually, a short familiar instruction, and at the high 
Masses, which are said or sung with music, the set sermon. 
I need not tell you, of course, that the Mass is the celebra- 
tion of the Lord's Supper, with all the ceremonies and 
usages that have come down to us from the earliest times. 
In the large parishes there are from six to eight Masses 



ROMAN CATHOLICISM 229 

of a Sunday, so that all the members of families may 
be accommodated. Many times the church is rilled, and 
at each the Gospel is read and expounded and applied to 
the daily life of the people. Thus throughout the year 
the church keeps up her mission of preaching the Gospel, 
now calmly explaining homely duties, now warning, now 
encouraging, now reproving, now pleading, now thunder- 
ing against abuses, now explaining her doctrine, — always 
conscious of her responsibility and yearning that Christ 
may be in the hearts of her people. 

But besides the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the 
ministry of preaching, the church has the powerful aids of 
confession and Holy Communion. The church teaches 
that the sins which we commit after baptism are forgiven 
through the Sacrament of Penance; and the necessary 
conditions on the part of the penitent for receiving 
absolution are contrition and confession. Now, before 
a man can confess his sins, he must examine his con- 
science carefully. The soul is forced to look at itself in 
the mirror of God's law. Words, deeds, conversation, 
omissions and all that interior life of thought and will 
which is hidden from the outside world, but which is so 
large and vital a part of the soul's history, all has to stand 
the searchlight of God's commands and prohibitions. This 
serious and frequent examination of one's life in its every 
detail and motive quickens the action of conscience and 
strengthens its voice. The deliberate hauling of oneself 
before the bar of eternal law, the steady looking inward 
at one's faults, failures and transgressions, whether 
against God, one's neighbor or one's own true interests, is 
the very first step in amendment. 

The declaration of one's sins to a fellow-creature is not 
agreeable, — it is not intended that it should be; it is a 
medicine for our pride, and medicine as a rule is not 
particularity palatable. But this declaration of sins is 



230 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

incumbent upon every one in the church, from the Pope 
himself down to the humblest layman in any walk of life. 
Every Catholic knows, too, that so absolute and sacred is 
the secrecy of the confessional, that the confessor would 
be obliged to lay down his life rather than reveal what is 
committed to his judgment in that tribunal. 

Besides the confession of sin, every Catholic knows 
that as a condition for obtaining forgiveness from sin he 
must have true sorrow, otherwise his confession is worse 
than a mockery. It would be sacrilege, and he would 
have added to his burden of sin instead of lightening it. 
And that sorrow must be of no vague, general kind, but 
very definite and practical. It must include not only 
regret and repentance for the past, but a resolve to be 
better in the future. It means the definite and firm resolu- 
tion to correct the sins that are declared, and furthermore 
to keep from whatever might prove a proximate occasion 
of sin. It is all this, coupled with the recital of the sins 
to the priest, which entitles the penitent to absolution. 
But it does not end there. There is then the satisfaction, 
or so-called " penance," that has to be performed by the 
penitent. If he has stolen he must make restitution; if 
he has slandered he must repair his slanders, and so on, 
and in every instance he must perform some exercise of 
piety intended to call to his mind and impress on his con- 
science the avoidance of temptation and sin. 

In the sacrament of matrimony the Catholic church 
has pronounced the holiest blessings upon the union of 
man and wife. The union of man and woman may have 
been a contract before, — and it was a slippery, evasive, 
indefinable contract, varying with caprice from divorce 
after divorce on the one hand to unlimited polygamy on 
the other, — but our Lord made it a sacrament and indis- 
soluble. The Catholic church recognizes no divorce. 
She stands for the family, the home and the sanctity of 



ROMAN CATHOLICISM 231 

the marriage tie. And she has ever stood for that, as 
some of the most notable events on the pages of history 
have shown. And she will unceasingly cry out against 
all legislation or any teaching which tends to disrupt the 
home or the family relation. 

We stand shoulder to shoulder with any set or society 
of men, — in or out of the church, if they mean it, — who 
strive to promote purity, domestic happiness and moral 
health, whether we agree with them in belief or not ; and 
the Catholic church will always protect the marriage rela- 
tion and keep the family together against all comers. It 
is the only human foundation upon which the church and 
state alike can build together, and it is one that needs the 
grace of God to keep it pure and stable. 

From the beginning of her history, the church has 
enjoined upon all her children obedience and loyalty to 
the lawfully constituted authorities in the respective 
countries. She teaches that as the church is God's 
representative in the supernatural order to lead men to 
a supernatural end of union with Him, so the state is 
God's representative in the natural order, to bring men 
to the end for which society was ordained, the temporal 
happiness and progress of the race. Disobedience, then, 
to the state in any matter which is within the state's com- 
petence, is disobedience to God. Obedience to the state 
and to all just laws is loyalty to God and is patriotism 
blessed by religion. 

In the natural order of things the Catholic church is 
willing to walk in company with all who work seriously 
and earnestly for the betterment, purity and right- 
mindedness of all people. In charity, benevolence and 
good works of all kinds she will meet all of you with a 
willing heart and ready hand. But in the teaching of the 
faith handed down by Jesus Christ she affirms that she 
alone has kept the whole deposit of faith intact, and the 



__3 



2$2 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

continuity and unity of the church along with it. While, 
therefore, she recognizes that others have gone out from 
her carrying with them the greater truths of revelation 
and have faithfully persevered in clinging to them, she 
cannot regard them as safe or trusted teachers, and cannot 
allow her children to violate their unity of the faith by 
joining in worship with those not of the fold. She bids 
them recognize every noble, good and worthy thing which 
those who are out of the fold possess, — nay, in many 
instances where they do not concern the faith she bids us 
imitate and adopt them. And so in the battle against 
wrong and sin and foulness, and in the desire and yearn- 
ing to make this the noblest country under the sun, we 
may join hands with you in effecting results, although we 
may not serve even temporarily under your banner or 
attend your martial exercises. 

But we may do something more, — we may pray for 
you and pray with you although apart from you. In 
the last analysis the Catholic church recognizes every 
baptised person as a member, and nothing but his own act, 
in wilfully rejecting the light of Go'd afforded him by 
the teaching of the church, and sinning deliberately 
against the grace of God, can deprive him of the super- 
natural end which the incarnation of our Lord Jesus 
Christ and His death on the cross prepared for them that 
believe on Him. 

I cannot forbear concluding this brief outline of the 
work and teaching of the Catholic church with the well 
known quotation from Lord Macaulay: 

" There is not and there was not on this earth a work of human 
policy so well deserving of examination as the Roman Catholic church. 
The history of that church joins together the two great ages of human 
civilization. No other institution is left standing which carries the 
mind back to the times when the smoke of sacrifice rose from the 
Pantheon and when the cameleopards and tigers bounded in the Flavian 



ROMAN CATHOLICISM 233 

amphitheatre. The proudest royal houses are but of yesterday as com- 
pared with the line of the Supreme Pontiffs. 

" The Catholic church is still sending forth to the farthermost ends of 
the world missionaries as zealous as those who landed in Kent with 
Augustine, and it is still confronting hostile kings and governments 
with the same spirit with which she confronted Attila. The number of 
her children is greater than in any former age. Her acquisitions in the 
new world have more than compensated for what she may have lost in 
the old. 

" Nor do we see any sign which indicates that the term of her long 
dominion is approaching. She saw the commencement of all govern- 
ments and of all ecclesiastical establishments which now exist in the 
world ; and we feel no assurance that she is not destined to see the end 
of them all. She was great and respected before the Saxon had set foot 
in Britain, before the Frank had passed the Rhine, when Grecian 
eloquence still flourished in Antioch, when idols were still worshiped 
in the temple of Mecca. And she will still exist in undiminished vigor 
when some traveller from New Zealand shall, in the midst of a vast 
solitude, take his stand on a broken arch of London Bridge to sketch 
the ruins of Saint Paul's." 



XV 



GREEK ORTHODOX CATHOLICITY: RELIGION 
OF SYRIA, GREECE, RUSSIA, ETC. 

By Ingram N. W. Irvine, D.D. 

Canon of St. Nicholas Cathedral, Brooklyn, N.Y. 

I am to treat of a church and her Catholicity which is 
the oldest, and claims to be the safest, way to reach un- 
adulterated "Truth as it is in Jesus." (Eph. iv. 21.) 
She has been very little known to the United States. 

For a thousand years Mohammedanism has acted like 
a dark cloud-barrier between Eastern and Western Chris- 
tianity. It is now lifting. For three hundred of these 
years the war has been so fierce between Protestantism 
and Romanism that controversialists have befogged all 
other considerations. This conduct is dying out. To-day 
looming up in grandeur and majesty over the wrecks of 
time rises the cross-crowned spire of the great Holy 
Orthodox Church of the East. 

Let me reveal her historical position and Catholicity: 

Early Missionary Field of Action 

There are names of certain cities which the followers 
of Jesus Christ, from age to age, will ever hold dear, viz., 
Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria and Constantinople. 
Preeminently these cities eclipse all others in ecclesiastical 
dignity, for in them, as in no other, ancient, unadulerated 
truth — " The Faith once for all delivered to the Saints " 
(St. Jude, 3) — was proclaimed. Associated with them 
are recorded the wonderful achievements of the church 

234 



GREEK ORTHODOX CATHOLICITY 235 

of God. Indeed, in one of them the very name " Chris- 
tian " was first given to believers in the Incarnate God — 
the Christ. 

In and near Jerusalem took place the Mystery of Sor- 
row, the sacred Passion, the ignominious Death on the 
Cross, the gloom of the Tomb; then the glorious Resur- 
rection, the Ascension of Jesus, and the Birth of the 
Church, namely, the descent of the Holy Ghost on the 
Day of Pentecost. Jerusalem claims the honor of the 
first Christian council and the first visible human head, 
if any, of the whole church, viz., St. James the Apostle 
(Acts xv, 13), and not St. Peter. It was from the 
church of Jerusalem light flashed all over the world. 
From her life sprung, and out of her divinely-filled foun- 
tain, inspiration flowed through the sacramental channels 
to give hope and immortality to a dying world. Yes, to 
assure believers of " an inheritance incorruptible and un- 
defiled and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven. " 
I St. Peter i, 4.) Jerusalem also claims an unbroken 
succession of bishops, many of whom were cousins after 
the flesh to our dear Lord ; and the line in that order of 
the ministry still exists in the Orthodox church of that 
famous city. 

And Antioch, — who does not love Antioch on the 
banks of the beautiful Orontes? — Antioch the head- 
quarters of St. Paul's great missionary journeys. 
Antioch, not Rome, the real and only unquestioned 
apostolic seat of St. Peter, for he dwelt in and presided 
as Bishop of that city seven years. (All veritable 
ecclesiastical historians agree in this.) But more, we of 
to-day when we grow weary of sectarianism, nationalism, 
churchism and all shibboleths which stain Christ's holy 
religion; when we realize that there is a great deal of 
malaria around the rock of each portion of the church, 
one and all fall back on a certain Glorious Name as a 



236 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

resting place which, if the inner life corresponds with the 
outer confession, makes every one of us glow with Divinity 
like as Christ — our Life and Light — on the Mount of 
the Transfiguration. I refer to the name " Christian ; " 
for it was in this city of Antioch that the followers of 
Christ "were first called Christians" (Acts xi, 26). 

And Alexandria, the Episcopal seat of St. Mark, who 
wrote the second Gospel and who was her first Bishop ; 
the home of martyrs and saints ; the University of 
Christian Theology; the Patriarchal See of that greatest 
sub-apostolic hero of the Faith, — St. Athanasius. 
Athanasius, who though the world seemed to be against 
him in his great defense of Christ's Divinity, and he 
against the world in defense of Truth, left to us that 
" True Catholic Faith which, if a man keeps whole and 
undefiled he shall not perish everlastingly, ,, namely, " that 
we worship One God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity, 
neither confounding the Persons nor dividing the Sub- 
stance " (Creed of St. Athanasius; vide Church of Eng- 
land Book of Common Prayer). 

And there is still another city, though now under the 
cursed yoke of a government which for its lust and rotten- 
ness surpasses our conception of human depravity; and 
yet, because of the cowardice and jealousies of so-called 
Christian nations is permitted, as an anti-Christ, to exalt 
her iniquitous head over the High Altar of the 
Cathedral of St. Sophia. I refer to the city of Con- 
stantinople. It was in this city that the second, fifth and 
sixth general councils of the whole Catholic Church 
assembled. And it was in the second of these the great 
Symbol of Faith, the Nicene Creed, was finished. It was 
in this city St. Chrysostom sat as Patriarch — Chryso- 
stom the golden-mouthed preacher ; the great reviser of 
the Liturgy of St. James, Bishop of Jerusalem, which 
to-day is the service or Liturgy of 150,000,000 of Ortho- 
dox Catholics. 



GREEK ORTHODOX CATHOLICITY 237 

Jurisdiction 

If we have at all any respect for scriptural, apostolical 
and sub-apostolical as well as early church injunctions, 
the whole domain of countries which surrounds those great 
patriarchal cities, to which I have referred, should be left 
inviolately to the Christian safe-keeping of the Holy 
Orthodox Catholic Apostolic Church, or, as she is 
generally known, " The Holy Eastern Church." She has 
been there in that field from the first dawn of Christianity. 
The fact that her very birth was and present existence 
still is in that region as a Christian Church, makes it a 
sin for either Rome or Protestantism to disturb her 
ancient landmarks. Both could well spend their many 
talents and energy in converting the heathen and building 
up the wall over against their own houses without striving 
to pervert a church which claims that she holds " the 
Faith once for all delivered to the Saints." At most, 
Rome and Protestantism ought only to support her in her 
stand against the encroachment of Mohammedanism 
without weakening her by intrusion and confusing her 
children with conflicting and strange doctrines. The 
Anglican Church alone, of all Western Christendom, re- 
frains from interference. Remember, the sin of schism 
is the parent of infidelity and atheism. 

Allied with the four ancient patriarchates are the other 
national Churches under Holy Synods as a governing 
power. They are those of Russia, Greece, Servia, 
Roumania, Montenegro and several independent Churches 
which need not be enumerated. 

The greatest of all the national Churches of any creed 
in the world is the Holy Orthodox Church of Russia with 
her 90,000,000 of members. She, too, is the greatest de- 
fender of the Ancient Faith of Christendom. A great 
wrong is being done to her by prejudiced writers by say- 



2$ UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

ing that the Czar is the Pope or Head of the Church. 
Those who say this must be either ignorant, prejudiced or 
men who speak and write falsely. In things spiritual 
neither in Russia nor in any section of the Orthodox 
Church, does she own any head but Jesus Christ. The 
Czar is only the " Defender of the Faith " in Russia, 
which is quite a different thing from being the Head of the 
Church. 

Two-thirds of the historians of secular history, and, 
alas, too many of sacred, are but copyists. Therefore, 
from age to age lies are handed down to us. It is only 
when some honest character seeks the truth and pro- 
claims it, however unpalatable, that the world begins to 
open its eyes. This is true in the case of Christianity 
itself. Turn over, for a striking instance, to the Gospel 
of St. Matthew, xxviii chapter, nth to 16th verses. 
Read there how the Jews are being deceived unto this day 
by the shrewdness, timidity and lying of the ecclesiastical 
politicians, the chief priests and elders of long ago. They 
paid the Roman soldiers to say that while they slept the 
disciples came and stole the body of Jesus ; " And this 
saying is commonly reported among the Jews until this 
day." 

So, for reasons best known to those who are afraid of 
the issues of unadulterated Catholic Truth, is the lie being 
scattered like hoar-frost, " The Czar is the Head of the 
Greek Church." But let me say as an Anglo-Celt and an 
American citizen, that while he is only a first-honored 
son, yet he is a thousand times a greater blessing to his 
people than his lying critics. 

Still while the Holy Eastern Church claims absolute 
jurisdiction over the before-named countries, she feels it 
a duty to raise her standard as a witness of antiquity 
everywhere the Faith of Christ and His Apostles has been 
unscripturally added to or taken from in order that all 



GREEK ORTHODOX CATHOLICITY 239 

men may know " the Truth as it is in Jesus " — and know- 
ing it, find rest for their souls. 

We all wish to learn one of another and to drink in 
inspiration one from the other irrespective of religious 
opinions or national prejudices. We are neither fighting 
nor discussing men, but rather ecclesiastical systems. 
Every bit of narrowness, therefore disappears. The 
United States is one of the greatest leaveners of nations. 
Unity and Harmony without enforced Uniformity can be 
seen all around. We believe that each man and woman 
is entitled to his and her conscientious convictions, and 
that Divine Truth must and will prevail whether it is the 
possession of so-called enemies or friends. I realize the 
fact that a dead orthodoxy is worse than a live heterodoxy ; 
but I am to speak of a living orthodoxy. 

It is with this sense of fairness, honesty of purpose and 
Christian charity, that historically, doctrinally, liturgically 
and ceremonially, yet altogether too briefly, I am to speak. 

The Name of the Church 

The name of the Church is striking and suggestive: 
" The Holy Orthodox Catholic Apostolic Church." Let 
us for a moment dwell on the signification of this name. 
I will ever, where I can, use her own technical language 
as found in her catechism, to express her interpretation 
and teaching. In this way whatever I say will be 
authoritative. In fact, this whole lecture is given by 
authority. 

" She is Holy" saith her catechism (Catechism of 
Russian Orthodox Church), "because she is sanctified 
by Jesus Christ through His passion, through His doctrine, 
through His prayers and through the Sacraments." 
" Christ loved the Church," saith St. Paul, " and gave 
Himself for it, having cleansed it with the washing of 



2 4 o UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

water by the Word, that He might present it to Himself a 
glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such 
thing but that it should be holy and without blemish." 
(Ephesians v, 25, 27.) (Russian Catechism.) 

"She is Orthodox" (which means "rightly believ- 
ing"), "for the same reason that she is Apostolic; be- 
cause she has from the Apostles, without break or change, 
both her doctrine and the succession of the gifts of the 
Holy Ghost through the laying on of consecrated hands." 
(Ephesians ii, 19, 30.) (Russian Catechism.) 

" She is Catholic because she is not limited to any 
place nor times, nor people, but contains true believers 
of all places, times and peoples." (Russian Catechism.) 

" She is the Church because she is a Divinely Instituted 
Community of Men, united by the Orthodox Faith, the 
Law of God and the Sacraments." (Russian Catechism.) 

She is commonly called " The Holy Eastern Church ", 
and the whole world whether Christian or heathen, 
whether Roman Catholic or Protestant, concedes this to 
her and calls her by this name. She herself gives her 
reasons for gladly accepting and calling herself by this 
name. For instance, " In Paradise planted in the East 
was founded the first church of our Parents in Inno- 
cence; and in the East, after the Fall, was laid a new 
foundation of the Church of the Redeemed in the promise 
of a Saviour. In the East, in the land of Judea, our 
Lord Jesus Christ having finished the work of our salva- 
tion, laid the foundation of his own proper Christian 
Church ; from thence she spread herself over the whole 
universe, and to this day the Orthodox Catholic Ecumeni- 
cal faith, confirmed by the Seven Ecumenical Councils, is 
preserved unchanged in its original purity in the Ancient 
Churches of the East, and such as agree with her." 
(Russian Catechism.) 

In contradiction to the term Roman Church or that 



GREEK ORTHODOX CATHOLICITY 241 

of the fifth of the Ancient Patriarchates which was planted 
by Greek missionaries in the city of Rome, the Imperial 
Seat of the Latin or Western Empire, she is spoken of as 
" The Greek Church." But pre-eminently is she Greek, 
for the Blessed Lord himself spoke not only Aramaic but 
also Greek, the Evangelists wrote in Greek the Gospels and 
the Epistles, or translated, as in the case of St. Matthew's 
Gospel, from Hebrew into Greek, and St. Mark's from 
Alexandrian Latin into Greek. In the Greek or Eastern 
Empire all the seven General Councils were held, and their 
canons and definitions were written in the Greek language. 
In Greek was the Nicene Creed written. In Greek was 
the first Liturgy written, and even the Church of Rome 
used Greek in her services instead of Latin for nearly the 
first three hundred years. Indeed, Greek was the univer- 
sal language of the church, for many centuries ; though, 
of course, she preached the Gospel and always sang her 
services in the dialect of barbarous nations wherever 
Greek was not understood, for she strictly obeyed, as she 
obeys still, the Scriptures that, the Gospel should be said 
in a language understood of the people so that all men 
may be able to intelligently say "Amen." (1 Corinth- 
ians xiv., 16.) 

Historical Position 

Let me now take up her Historical Position. In doing 
this I must necessarily somewhat recapitulate. 

The Holy Eastern Church's position as a historic 
Church is impregnable. Jew and Gentile, Christian and 
Anti-Christian, Anglican and Protestant, acknowledge this 
as a fact. There is no need, therefore, of trying to prove 
that which is universally admitted. She truly is founded 
" upon the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself 
being the chief corner stone." (Ephesians ii., 20.) From 



242 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

her the peoples of the world first received the knowledge 
of Christ. Her founders, the Apostles, were the first 
bishops and missionaries of the Catholic Church. It was 
in her Sacred Womb the increase of the Apostolate was 
conceived in Jerusalem which gave a St. Mathias instead 
of a Judas Iscariot, which gave spiritual birth to a Barna- 
bas, a Paul, a Timothy, a Titus, a Mark, a Clement Ro- 
manus, an Ignatius, a Polycarp, and sons of the first, 
second and third centuries too numerous to be mentioned. 
Brave heroes of the Faith, who lived and sacrified their 
lives for the Christ Who alone is the Eternal Hope and 
Salvation of mankind ; for saith He, " If ye believe not 
that I am He, ye shall die in your sins." (St. John viii, 
24.) They are the men to whom the whole Christian 
world looks back to-day with gratitude, for the twelve 
Apostles could all say for an assurance even to us of the 
twentieth century, what St. John the Divine wrote in his 
first Epistle, " That which was from the beginning, which 
we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which 
we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the 
Word of life (for the life was manifested, and we have 
seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal 
life, which was with the Father and was manifested unto 
us:) That which we have seen and heard declare we un- 
to you, that ye also may have fellowship with us, and truly 
our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus 
Christ." (1 St. John, i, 1, 2, 3.) Yes, that unbroken fel- 
lowship every member of the Holy Eastern Church claims 
and historically possesses. It may without controversy be 
truly said that she is the parent Church of all Christian 
Churches, whether they be Roman or Anglican or Prot- 
estant, and that as such she ought to take her place in 
every land, in every city, in every hamlet, so that those 
Churches which have either added to or taken from the 
Faith of the first seven General Councils, namely, Nicea, 



GREEK ORTHODOX CATHOLICITY 243 

Constantinople, Ephesus, Chalcedon, 2nd and 3rd of 
Constantinople and 2nd of Nicea, may correct their creeds, 
articles and charts by her original and scriptural standard 
of " the Faith once for all delivered to the Saints." 



The Church's Unchangeable Position 

It is cheering to know that the Holy Eastern Church, 
Scriptural, Orthodox, the mother of all Christendom, has 
not changed perceptibly one whit since the last of the 
twelve Apostles, St. John the Divine, fell asleep. The 
ministry which she had then she has now (threefold in 
its nature or orders, Bishops, Priests and Deacons). 
The Liturgy and worship she had then in its simplicity or 
elaborateness, the Doctrine and Discipline, are those which 
she possesses this very moment. As the Bride of Christ, 
though ancient of days, she is filled with the bloom' of 
eternal loveliness and youth, and therefore the virtuous 
moral and spiritual guide, the teacher and the true home 
of the souls of men. 



Her External Structure 

The external structure of the Holy Eastern Church, 
though she began her chancel in Jerusalem extending it 
eastward from where her Divine Head shed His Sacred 
Blood, gradually flung her arched transepts northward and 
southward and her nave westward toward the setting sun. 
Thus we see the Apostles from Jerusalem going north and 
south and traveling westward until the Gospel was heard 
and planted as St. Paul says in " the ends of the world " 
(Romans x., 18.) She is in New York, in San Fran- 
cisco, the best friend and hope of Alaska, through the 
wilds of cheerless Siberia, indoctrinating China, convert- 



244 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

ing Japan, binding in her great orthodox bosom, under 
the great dome of heaven, surmounted by the Cross of 
Christ and alone under His headship, the continents with 
their peoples. Wherever the Nicene Creed is said, as 
handed down from the General Councils without the 
Romish interpolation ; she is there. Wherever the New 
Testament is read, every word of which her sons wrote; 
she is there. Please remember that not one general 
council was ever held outside her early territorial field, — 
those councils which declared to us the canon of Holy 
Scripture, that is, what were the true Books of the Bible, 
and proclaimed for all ages the true interpretation of the 
same in the Nicene Creed. 

The Causes of Schism between East and West 

Before I pass on, I must here give a bit of history to 
those who perhaps are not conversant with the cause of 
the sad schism between the Ancient Orthodox Church of 
Christ, of which I am speaking, and what is known as the 
Roman or the Church under the Patriarch or Pope of 
Rome. His Patriarchate originally was very limited, its 
most northern point being the city of Milan (" English 
Roman Catholics and the Papal Court," by Galton), 

For 800 years the whole Church was united. She was 
all orthodox. She was held together by acceptance of 
the Seven General Councils, though the Western 
Patriarchate, Rome, tried frequently to " lord it over " the 
rest of " God's heritage." (1 Peter v, 3.) Her attempts 
were all failures. All of her references to Ancient 
Authorities are either based on fiction or the perverted 
language of early writers. Greeks were the first theo- 
ological writers. Rome finds no help in them. Even her 
great early western supporter St. Augustine, Bishop of 
Hippo, fell from under, by saying that he was mistaken 



GREEK ORTHODOX CATHOLICITY 245 

in his declaring St. Peter as the Rock on which the Church 
was founded. And for shame, the words of St. Ireneus 
have been grossly twisted and mistranslated as to Rome 
being the center. The Pope of Rome had to sign the 
canon and decrees of the Fourth General Council, 
Chalcedon, just like the other patriarchs and members of 
the Council and thus seal his own and his successors' fate 
in reference to the false doctrine of supremacy. The 22nd 
Canon of Chalcedon placed Constantinople and Rome on 
the same level of spiritual power. 

The real and first cause of the break between the East 
and West was when Rome, contrary to the Seven General 
Councils, interpolated the Nicene Creed. She inserted the 
unscriptural doctrine of the " filioque " first suggested by 
the Spanish Council of Toledo a.d. 589. 

The original Nicene Creed reads, in its seventh article, 
" 1 believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of Life, 
Who proceedeth from the Father, Who with the Father 
and the Son together is worshipped and glorified." The 
Pope of Rome unwarrantably inserted the Toledo words, 
" filioque," making the article read " The Holy Ghost 
Who proceedeth from the Father and the Son" (Latin, 
"filioque"). This was contrary to the consent of the 
whole Eastern Church, which had four-fifths of the 
Patriarchates, and contrary to the Seven General Councils, 
which never used such words. But chiefly contrary to the 
express words of Jesus Christ Himself, Who says, " But 
when the Comforter is come whom I will send unto you 
from the Father even the Spirit of truth which pro- 
ceedeth from the Father, He shall testify of Me." (St. 
John xv, 26.) 

Several attempts on the part of popes of Rome and 
emperors both of the East and West, nearly all of political 
nature, were made to reunite the Eastern and Western 
Churches. All failed for the reason that the Eastern 



246 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

Church would not consent to move away one step from 
" the Faith once for all delivered to the saints," as St. 
Jude says. " Rightly believing," she was unwilling even 
in the face of political persecution and the scourge of 
hell, Mohammedanism, — yes, and equally as vile, some 
of the crusades to sell her birthright for a mess of political 
pottage and worldly help ; or acknowledge the supremacy 
of Rome, which was never heard of in early ages; or 
accept doctrines which were contrary to both the Holy 
Scriptures and the General Councils. 

The final rupture took place in a.d. 1054, when Pope 
Leo IX. of Rome tried to usurp authority over the 
Patriarch of Constantinople, Michael Cerularius. On the 
refusal of the latter to betray the Eastern Church, the 
pope withdrew from communion with the whole East. 
The Eastern Patriarch in turn excommunicated Pope 
Leo IX. and his followers. Thus the Latin Church 
became of her own voluntary act schismatical. Rome to- 
day instead of being the Catholic Church, is, alas, the 
Mother of Schism ; the Unity of Christendom on her basis 
is forever barred. 

The further attempts of union at the Councils of Lyons, 
1274, was also a political scheme, and that of the Council 
of Florence unworthy of the Western Patriarchate, a 
disgrace even to Christianity which was quickly resented 
by the whole Eastern Church by an absolute refusal to 
accept the proposed articles of the union. She once for 
all ignored any attempts of reunion excepting on the 
platform of Holy Scriptures, the witness of the Anti- 
Nicene Fathers and the Seven General Councils. 

The Faith and Doctrine 

The Orthodox Church's Faith is that expressed in the 
Nicene Creed free from the interpolation to which I have 



GREEK ORTHODOX CATHOLICITY 247 

already referred. Any doctrine promulgated by any por- 
tion of Western Christendom, whether by the Roman 
Church or Protestant Churches, which is contrary to the 
universal teaching of the whole Christian Church both 
East and West before the close of the eighth century, the 
Orthodox Church repudiates. She declares and believes 
that no portion of the Church can promulgate a doctrine as 
binding upon the whole Church without universal consent. 
Therefore, she teaches any doctrines of Rome, after the 
close of the Seventh General Council, a.d. 784 (such as 
the Supremacy of the Pope, his Infallibility, the Immac- 
ulate Conception of the Blessed Virgin, by which you must 
understand that the Mother of the Virgin (Anna) im- 
maculately conceived her daughter Mary, whom the 
Eastern Church reveres as ever virgin, the Mother of 
God), as unscriptural, unchristian and unhistoric, and not 
necessary to salvation. 

The late Archbishop Hughes of the Roman Catholic 
Archdiocese of New York had printed in his Catechism : 
" Infallibility is a Protestant lie, and no doctrine of the 
Catholic Faith/' It was only in my lifetime that *the 
Roman Church declared this doctrine as a matter of Faith. 
Poor dear Archbishop Hughes, may his soul rest in peace, 
must turn in his grave, for Rome has become Protes- 
tant (?) in this respect since the last Vatican Council 
which promulgated Infallibility as a doctrine necessary to 
salvation. The first edition of Hughes' Catechism has 
been made to conform to later teaching. His declaration 
has been expunged. But equally ridiculous is Rome's 
declaration of papal infallibility when we resort to his- 
tory, and note that in the very General Councils which she 
accepts some of her popes were anathematized as heretics, 
notably Pope Honorius. 



248 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

The Sacraments 

The Orthodox Church has Seven Holy Rites which she 
calls Sacraments. Her definition of a sacrament is quite 
simple, viz., " A Mystery or Sacrament is a Holy act 
through which grace or in other words the Saving power 
of God works mysteriously upon Man." (Russian 
Catechism.) 

First. The first of these is "Baptism" (Russian 
Catechism), — " a sacrament in which a man who believes 
having his body thrice plunged in water in the name of 
God the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, dies to 
a life of sin and is born again of the Holy Ghost to 
a life spiritual and holy." She bases her authority on 
the express words of Jesus Christ in St. John iii, 5, 
" Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he 
cannot enter the Kingdom of God." 

Second. Her second Sacrament is " Unction with 
Chrism," namely, Confirmation, or " A sacrament, in 
which the baptized believer, being anointed with holy 
chrism on certain parts of the body, in the name of the 
Holy Ghost, receives the gifts of the Holy Ghost for 
growth and strength in spiritual life." (Russian 
Catechism.) As St. John says in his 1st Epistle ii, 20, 2J 
verse, " But ye have an unction from the Holy One, and 
ye know all things. And the anointing which ye have 
recieved of Him abideth in you, and ye need not that any 
man teach you ; but as the same anointing teacheth you of 
all things, and is truth, and is no lie ; even as it hath taught 
you, abide therein ; " and again as St. Paul says in 2nd 
Cor. i, 21, 22 , " Now He which establisheth us with you in 
Christ, and hath anointed us, is God: Who hath also 
sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our 
hearts." The priest in the administration of this sacra- 
ment anoints " the forehead " to sanctify " the mind or 



GREEK ORTHODOX CATHOLICITY 249 

thoughts," " the chest " to sanctify " the heart or desires," 
" the eyes, ears and lips " to sanctffy " the senses," " the 
hands and feet " to sanctify " the works, and whole walk 
of the Christian." 

Third. " The Communion is a Sacrament, in which 
the believer under the form of bread and wine partakes 
of the Very Body and Blood of Christ, to everlasting 
life." (Russian Catechism.) She uses the exact words of 
our Blessed Lord in consecrating the Blessed Sacrament 
as found in St. Matt, xxvi, 26, 27, 28 : " Take, eat, 
this is My Body ; Drink ye all of it, for this is My Blood 
of the New Testament." Neither Christ nor His disciples 
offered any form of explanation. She believes that it is 
His Very Body and His Very Blood. She worships 
Christ objectively present. She believes Him present 
whether the recipient believes it or not. (1 Cor. xi, 26, 
27, 28, 29.) 

Fourth. " Penitence is a Sacrament, in which he who 
confesses his sins is, on the outward declaration of 
pardon by the priest, inwardly loosed from sins by Jesus 
Christ Himself." (Russian Catechism.) The Apostles 
were promised by Jesus Christ in the eighteenth 
chapter of St. Matt., 18th verse, power to forgive sins to 
the penitent and to bind them upon the guilty, when He 
said : " Whatsoever ye shall loose on earth, shall be 
loosed in heaven ; and whatsoever ye shall bind on earth, 
shall be bound in heaven." And after His resurrection, we 
read in St. John's Gospel, xx, 22, 23, He actually gave 
them this power, saying : " Receive ye the Holy Ghost : 
Whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them ; 
and whosoever sins ye retain, they are retained." This 
power the priests of the Church still hold, for Christ said : 
" Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the 
world," meaning to you and your successors. See St. 
Matthew, xxviii, 20. 



250 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

Fifth. " Matrimony is a Sacrament, in which on the 
free promise of the man and woman before a Priest and 
the Church to be true to each other, their conjugal union 
is blessed to be an image of Christ's union with the 
Church, and grace is asked for them to live together in 
godly love and honesty, to the procreation and Christian 
bringing up of children." (Russian Catechism.) St. 
Paul, paraphrasing on the words of the Old Testament, 
and repeating the words of Christ, says, " A man shall 
leave his father and mother and shall be joined unto his 
wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This Sacrament is 
great; but I speak concerning Christ and the Church." 
(Ephesians v, 31, 32.) 

Sixth. " Orders are a Sacrament, in which the Holy 
Ghost, by the laying on of the Bishop's hands, ordains 
them that be rightly chosen to minister sacraments, and 
" to feed the flock of Christ." There are three degrees 
of orders, — those of Bishops, Priests and Deacons. The 
Deacon serves at Sacraments; the Priest hallows Sacra- 
ments in dependence on the Bishop ; the Bishop not only 
hallows the Sacraments himself, but has power also to 
impart to others, by the laying on of his hands, the gift 
and grace to hallow them." (Russ. Cate.) St. Paul says 
(I Cor. iv, 1), " Let a man so account of us, as of the 
Ministers of Christ, and stewards of the Mysteries of 
God." And again : " Take heed therefore unto your- 
selves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost 
hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, 
which He hath prepared with His own blood " Acts 
xx, 28. 

This ministry she teaches originated " from Jesus 
Christ, and from the descent of the Holy Ghost on the 
Apostles ; from which time it is continued in unbroken 
succession, through the laying on of hands, in the Sacra- 
ment of Orders." (Russian Catechism.) 



GREEK ORTHODOX CATHOLICITY 251 

Seventh. " Unction with oil is a Sacrament, in which, 
while the body is anointed with oil, God's grace is invoked 
on the sick, to heal him of spiritual and bodily infirmities. ,, 
(Russian Catechism.) Christ Jesus must have com- 
manded His Apostles to anoint the sick, for we read of 
what they did in St. Mark vi, 13, viz. : " They anointed 
with oil many that were sick and healed them." St. 
James, in the fifth chapter of his Epistle, verses 14, 15, 
commands: " Is any sick among you? Let him call for 
the elders (namely, priests of the church) ; and let them 
pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the 
Lord ; and the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the 
Lord shall raise him up ; and if he have committed sins 
they shall be forgiven him." 

She administers the first three sacraments to infants, 
after the example of the ancient Church, for she believes 
that no one can be a fitter recipient of grace (it being 
wholly the gift of God) than an infant. As a mother she 
feeds her children from infancy. — St. Peter says : 
" Grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus 
Christ." (11. Peter, iii, 18.) 

The Unity between the Church Militant and the 
Church at Rest 

In a very brief way, but in her own language, I have 
given the Holy Eastern Church's definition of the Sacra- 
ments and her Scriptural authority. I now may pass on 
a little farther. The sacraments are certainly to unite 
fallen man to his perfect Creator. But " the Church, 
though visible so far as she is upon earth, and containing 
all Orthodox Christians living upon earth, still is at the 
the same time invisible, so far as she is also partially in 
heaven, and contains all those that have departed hence in 
faith and holiness." (Russian Catechism). Indeed, the 



252 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

relationship between the earthly saint and the heavenly is 
very close. To quote St. Paul's words, Heb. xii, 22, 24, 
which will show us the intercommunion, " Ye are come 
unto Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the 
heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of 
angels, to the general assembly and church of the first- 
born, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge 
of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and 
to Jesus Christ the mediator of the new covenant." 

The Church therefore teaches that there is " unity 
between the Church on earth and the Church in heaven " 
(Russian Catechism), " both their common relation to one 
Head, one Lord, Jesus Christ, and by mutual communion 
with one another." She also teaches as a consequence of 
this union that there is a communion between the Church 
on earth and in heaven by " prayer of faith and love. 
The faithful who belong to the Church militant upon 
earth, in offering their prayers to God call at the same 
time to their aid the Saints who belong to the Church 
in heaven ; and those standing on the highest steps of 
approach to God, by their prayers and intercessions 
purify, strengthen, and offer before God the prayers of 
the faithful living upon earth, and by the will of God 
work graciously and beneficially upon them, either by 
invisible virtue or by distinct apparitions, and in divers 
other ways." 

The Invocation of Saints 

The Church sees no reason why she should not invoke 
the aid of the Saints at rest when she has for example 
David, when he cries out : " O Lord God of Abraham, 
Isaac, and of Israel, our fathers," I Chron. xxix, 18. 
And the Evangelist St. John, in the Revelation, viii, 3, 
4, gives us testimony of " the mediatory prayer of the 



GREEK ORTHODOX CATHOLICITY 253 

Saints in heaven " when he tells us that he saw in heaven 
" an Angel, to whom was given much incense, that he 
should offer it, by the prayers of all Saints, upon the 
Golden Altar which was before the throne ; and the Smoke 
of the incense ascended up by the prayers of the Saints 
out of the hands of the Angel before God." 

Heaven, is nearer to us than Boston is to New York. 
I can speak from New York through a telephone to a 
friend in Boston. Why not through prayer — God's own 
ancient telephone, never out of order — speak with a 
friend in a nearer place? Heaven is where Christ is 
present. The spiritual law of Religion surely is as great 
as the physical law of Science. To doubt it would be 
folly. 

The Intermediate State 

The Orthodox Church is explicit in her teaching. She 
believes in an intermediate state where the souls of the 
faithful await the Resurrection of the flesh from the 
grave. She holds the teaching of Jesus Christ that those 
who wilfully do not believe in Him as the Incarnate 
Redeemer, as well as the unrepentant man, die in their 
sins and are consigned by their conduct to a place where 
there is neither joy nor hope, to await the Judgment Day. 

The Infallibility and Impeccability of the Holy 
Catholic Church 

She teaches in her Catechism that "The Catholic 
Church cannot sin or err, nor utter falsehood in place of 
truth, for the Holy Ghost, ever working through His 
faithful ministers, the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, 
preserves her from error. (Russian Catechism.) 



254 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

Sole Authority 

She affirms that " the only authority that can extend 
over the whole Church's sphere of action is an Ecumenical 
Council." (Russian Catechism.) 

Confederation, not Subjection 

She believes in the Confederation of Patriarchal, Na- 
tional, and Independent Churches under their respective 
Orthodox Patriarchs, Holy Synods or such other local 
government as is not contrary to antiquity and Christ's 
teaching. 

Christ Alone the Head of the Church 

And here for the sake of emphasis I repeat her own 
words in reference to the Headship of the Christian 
Church : 

" As the Apostle Paul writes, that for the Church as 
the building of God, ' other foundation can no man lay 
than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ/ i Cor. iii, 
10, II, wherefore the Church, as the Body of Christ can 
have no other Head than Jesus Christ." The Church 
being to abide through all generations of time needs 
also an abiding Head, and such is Jesus Christ alone. 
Wherefore also the Apostles take no higher title than 
that of ' Ministers ' of the Church." Col. i, 24, 25. 
(Russian Catechism.) 

Service Book 

I may now look at her Service Book. Her great treas- 
ury of devotion may be divided into three parts : 

First. Short Devotional Services, known as the 



GREEK ORTHODOX CATHOLICITY 255 

Hours. These are seven in number, according to scrip- 
tural teaching " Seven times a day do I praise Thee." 
(Ps. cix, 164.) 

Second. Her Book of Needs, viz., those special serv- 
ices for the performance of sacraments and rites other 
than those of the Holy Communion. 

Third. Her Communion Service, which bears the name 
of " The Liturgy," meaning " Common Service." 

This Liturgy is very old. It comes down to us from 
St. James, cousin of our Lord after the flesh, who was 
the first Bishop of Jerusalem. This ancient Liturgy 
was first reduced in form by St. Basil, Bishop of Cappa- 
docia, and later on abbreviated still more by St. Chrys- 
ostom, Patriarch of Constantinople. The service itself 
consists of practically two parts : first, the Liturgy of the 
Catechumens, or that part which those preparing to be 
baptized and penitents could attend. It included Litanies, 
the Epistle and Gospel and Sermon. (After this service 
they were expected to leave, in ancient days.) Second, 
the Liturgy of the Faithful, which, with Litanies, etc., em- 
braced the saying of the Creed and the Consecration and 
distribution of the Body and Blood of our Dear Lord to 
those who were prepared to receive. The Liturgy is 
most beautiful, dignified, and majestic. 

Prior to the saying of the Liturgy proper there is 
what is known as the Proskomede Service, which means 
the preparation of the elements brought by the faithful 
for the celebration of the Blessed Sacrament. The Holy 
Eastern Church in her Communion Service not only by 
words but by ceremonies and processions portrays the 
Sacrifice, Death, Resurrection and Ascension of our 
Blessed Lord. No one who has ever seen a grand Holy 
Orthodox Pontifical Service, i. e., one wherein a Bishop 
with attending Priests and Deacons serve, leaves the 
Church edifice without being convinced that he has seen 



256 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

portrayed in a most solemn and devotional manner a 
little bit of heaven on earth. 



Robes, etc. 

We may go a step further: As we notice the robes 
of the clergy, ornaments of the altar and whole edifice, 
and the ceremonies, we may lawfully ask why all such 
display? What meaneth all this? Indeed, we need only 
go to the Bible to get our answer. God is the author of 
robes, ornaments and ceremonies. Our first parents 
adopted withering, changing leaves of fig trees (Genesis 
iii, 7,) for a covering. It was God who gave to Adam 
the woolly skin of the first Sacrificial Lamb to be a robe. 
(Genesis iii, 21.) No one but God could have sug- 
gested to Abel the sacrificing of a Lamb upon an Altar 
(Gen. iv, 21,) emblematic of "the Lamb slain from the 
foundation of the world" Christ. (Rev. xiii, 28.) 
Around that one act the Prophetic Sacrifice of old — the 
memorial, unbloody sacrifice now — have grown up by 
divine suggestion and command all the elaborate, yet 
helpful to ' devotional life and reverential approach to 
God, robes, ornaments and ceremonies. And, oh, how 
wise and blessed have been all of these suggestions and 
commands of God! Indeed, He saw the ever-changing, 
and sometimes ridiculous, fashions of mankind and how 
inappropriate they would be to a dignified worship of 
the Divine Majesty. He, therefore, suggested change- 
less robes for His priests. The priestly " alb " of the 
Christian church is after the fashion of that prescribed 
by God Himself. 

Unless, then, we are ready to ignore both the fact of 
the Bible being the Word of God, early history and sacred 
tradition being trustworthy, we must agree to certain 
points after reading carefully and prayerfully, viz., that: 



GREEK ORTHODOX CATHOLICITY 257 

First. Robes, ornaments, and ceremonies are ordained 
of God. 

Second. That our Blessed Lord when He became man 
for our salvation, in no shape, form or manner rebuked 
the use of them, but by His presence and use of them, and 
also by His disciples' presence and use of them in the 
Jewish church, gave His and their sanction. 

Third. That His disciples after our Blessed Lord's 
Ascension regularly attended for twelve years the services 
of the Temple and joined in all excepting the Bloody 
Sacrifice — the Holy Communion in their " Upper 
Room " or first Christian church, having taken the place 
of this latter. And here it must be noted that Christ 
must have given His Apostles very minute instructions 
about all these during the " Great Forty Days " which 
intervened His Resurrection and Ascension. We are 
told by St. Luke that He spoke " to them of the things 
pertaining to the Kingdom of God" (Acts i, 3) — the 
Kingdom and Church of Christ are synonymous terms. 

Fourth. That when the Apostles scattered hither and 
thither after the martyrdom of St. Stephen the Deacon, 
they adopted as far as necessary and applicable to Chris- 
tianity the very robes, ornaments and ceremonies of the 
Jewish Church of Shadow, and of which the Kingdom 
of God or Church of Christ was the Substance. 

Fifth. When representatives of the Christian Church 
throughout the world met in Jerusalem under the Presi- 
dency of St. James the Apostle, and again at the first 
General Council of Nicea, A. D. 325, there never was 
one word uttered against the then existing ceremonies 
and robes. All was taken for granted, though men had 
come from the ends of the earth to Nicea. Ceremonial 
centainly there was, robes certainly there were, but 
those who came from Jerusalem, or Constantinople or 
Alexandria or Far-off India or Africa or Rome or 



258 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

Hespenalia, or Gaul or Britain, all were agreed on the an- 
cient usages and the expediency of them. 

And so, Sixth, the Holy Eastern Church to-day with 
her robes, ornaments and ceremonies has no excuse to 
offer. Each has its meaning. One and all point us up to 
heavenly things and away from what is earthly and 
changeable.. 

Those who desire to follow up this subject ought to 
read the Books of Exodus and Leviticus and then weigh 
well St. Paul's Epistle to the Hebrews, and from thence 
note how, as I have said, our Blessed Lord and His 
Apostles never in one jot or tittle deprecated those 
things. Remember the Birth of the Christian Church 
was on the Day of Pentecost, for it was then the Holy 
Ghost descended and filled her waiting soul with life, light, 
power and immortality. We must not expect Ritual 
Rules in the fourfold Gospel. We must, therefore, un- 
derstand the meaning of St. Paul's words about the 
Services, " Let everything be done decently and in 
order," 1. Cor. xiv, 40, as referring to ceremony, and when 
he commands St. Timothy to bring " the cloke " — 
"the books" and "parchments" (II Tim, iv, 13), as 
referring to things which he had need of in the conduct- 
ing of public worship. 

Surely if the Church Militant is but a stepping-stone 
to the Church of Paradise, as we read the first chapter of 
the Revelation of St. John the Divine and scan the 
chapters thereafter, there need no more be said on this 
point. 

Sometimes the Orthodox Church is criticised for the 
use of ornaments. But here again she falls back on 
Scriptural teaching and example. It was God who com- 
manded Moses to place the images of the Cherubim over 
the Ark of the Covenant in the Holy of holies (Ex. 
xxv, 18--23). She only uses the emblem of the Cross 



GREEK ORTHODOX CATHOLICITY 259 

and pictures as reminders of Redemption and the virtues 
and nearness of the Saints, and as helps to devotion. 
Her one and only highest object of adoration and wor- 
ship is the Triune God. Her one and only immediate 
Mediator, Advocate and Intercessor with the Eternal 
Father is Jesus Christ (I Tim. ii, 5). The Blessed 
Virgin and Saints at most only help to save us by their 
prayers and intercession to Jesus. Christ alone is both 
their salvation and ours by His Redeeming Blood as the 
God Man. 

The Church not Political 

The Orthodox Church is not a political body. She 
draws a distinction between her mission to help all men 
and that domineering spirit of the West to subject all 
men under a human head and curia at Rome. The 
Orthodox Church's kingdom, like her only Head, Christ, 
— "is not of this world" (John xviii, 36). She pro- 
claims " the Faith once for all delivered to the Saints." 
Her sons are willing to die now as through all the ages 
of the past rather than either add to, take from or deny 
that Faith, for their Mother the Church, has been 
intrusted with the guardianship of that Divine Treasury 
for the salvation of all mankind, and it is their duty to 
hand down from age to age the Truth as they have re- 
ceived the same from Christ, His Apostles and the days 
of the early undivided Church. 

Rome is handing down to us m her imperial power — 
I except her spirituality, of course — the old pagan 
Roman system of supremacy and universality. Circum- 
stances connected with the dismemberment of the 
Western Empire afforded her the temptation. If all 
her popes were like Gregory the Great it would not 
have been so. He ignored such teachings and protested 
against it, but the weakness of kings helped to create 
the strength of popes not spiritually minded, and so has 



260 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

grown up, in contradistinction to ancient Rome during 
the first four centuries, with her long and great list of 
Saints, the Italian Curia, which like malice weed over- 
clouds her great goodness in every land, and saps the 
spirituality out of her as a great organization. It has 
changed her from a portion of the Body Mystical of 
Christ into an ecclesiastical machine of human invention. 
Her Patriarchal See has become the extinguisher of 
the dignity and importance of an Apostolic Episcopate, 
and her creation of a Cardinalate a matter which neither 
Christ nor His Apostles ever foretold, an institution 
which neither Bishops, Priests, Deacons, nor Laity outside 
of the City of Rome had aught to say as to its necessity. 
It is as purely human as the" Roman Papacy, and its tem- 
poral pomp and grandeur are rebuked by the Founder of 
the Holy Catholic church, Who " made Himself of no 
reputation" (Philippians ii, 7) for us; Who while the 
foxes had "holes and the birds of the air nests" (Matt, 
vii, 20) had not where to lay His Royal, Incarnate 
Head ; Who instructed His followers, saying " Take My 
yoke upon you and learn of Me, for I am meek and 
lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest for your souls " 
(Matt, xi, 29) ; who even after His Resurrection became 
again the Servant to His poor tired Fisher-Disciples, 
having prepared for them a meal on the shores of Galilee 
(John xxi, 9.) 

The Orthodox Church is the True Witness against 
Rome's false claims, as well as her temporal power and 
human inventions. 

Men to-day are looking for the Truth as it is in Jesus. 
" The Holy Orthodox Catholic Apostlic Church " prom- 
ulgates to the world, that being the Body Mystical of her 
Lord and her God, — she like Him is " the same yester- 
day, and to-day, and for ever " (Heb. xiii, 8) in doctrine 
and fellowship. 



XVI 

PROTESTANTISM 

By Arthur Cushman McGiffert, Ph.D., D.D. 

Washburn Professor of the Church History, Union Theological 
Seminary 

Protestantism is a complicated phenomenon. Its very 
name implies that it was originally a negation, a nega- 
tion of or protest against the Catholic system which was 
arousing so many to revolt in the sixteenth century. Into 
the ranks of the Protestants came all sorts of men, 
interested in all sorts of things, bound together only by 
a common discontent with the old church. We cannot 
group Protestants under the name of a single leader as we 
can group Christians under the name of Christ or Con- 
fucianists under the name of Confucius or Mohammedans 
under the name of Mohammed. At the same time there 
are certain things that can be said in describing the phe- 
nomenon or group of phenomena that we know as Prot- 
estantism. The subject I think can best be approached 
historically. 

It is common to speak of the Protestant Reformation 
as a modern movement, to think of it as a child of the 
modern age and to contrast it in this respect with Greek 
and Roman Catholicism. It is common to say that the 
modern age began in the fourteenth or fifteenth century 
and that Protestantism, taking its rise as it did in the six- 
teenth century, was a fruit of the modern spirit. But 
this is entirely to misunderstand Protestantism. In its 
inception it was not a modern movement and was not 
controlled by the modern spirit. A fundamental element 

261 



262 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

in mediaeval Christianity, whether Greek or Roman, was 
the notion that man is a corrupt and depraved being, 
helpless to save himself and to escape from sin and evil. 
It was consequently thought necessary that there should 
be a supernatural system by which his redemption might 
be effected and his release from evil accomplished. It 
was in. this light that Christianity was interpreted. The 
Reformation did not break with this conception. Luther 
was one with the mediaeval theologians in his emphasis 
upon the corruption and helplessness of man. In fact, 
no one ever laid greater stress than he upon the doctrine 
of human depravity and bondage. And so to conceive 
of him as a modern man, actuated by the spirit of the 
modern age, is really to misunderstand him. 

The spirit of the dawning modern age was confidence 
in the ability, worth and goodness of humanity. The new 
age revolted against the mediaeval valuation of man and 
opened before him a wholly new world. There was new 
confidence in his powers and new emphasis upon his 
rights. There were new discoveries, new inventions, new 
opportunities in every field. All this the new age meant 
but upon all this Luther turned his back. It is a signifi- 
cant fact that though the modern men, the men who were 
alive to the new spirit, the Intellectuals of his day, were 
at first attracted by Luther, many of them soon deserted 
him, finding that he belonged to another world. And so 
I say that to call the Reformation a modern movement is 
to misname it. 

At the same time there were features of the Reforma- 
tion that must be recognized as congenial to the modern 
spirit, even if not themselves its fruit. They are to be 
traced back ultimately to the remarkable religious ex- 
perience of the great Reformer. 

Luther's experience in the monastery at Erfurt led 
him to break at two points with the existing Catholic 



PROTESTANTISM 263 

notion of salvation. In the first place, he was led to con- 
ceive of salvation as a free gift of God which man can do 
nothing to secure or to promote. He cannot earn it by- 
works; he cannot earn it by faith; it is voluntarily be- 
stowed by God. In the second place Luther was led to 
conceive of salvation as a present reality. Traditionally 
it has been pushed into the future. A man was supposed 
to be saved only when he reached heaven, and throughout 
this life he must labor in order to make himself -worthy, 
or earn in one or another way the future bliss. Luther 
repudiated this notion completely and declared that the 
Christian man is saved here and now, just as much saved 
in this life and upon this earth as he will ever be in the 
aeons of eternity. 

But what did Luther mean by salvation when he spoke 
of it thus? It is evident that he did not mean what was 
ordinarily meant by it. He meant simply this : that God, 
the Father of Jesus Christ, whose character and purposes 
have been revealed to us in Jesus Christ, has shown him- 
self a gracious, loving Father, and seeing him we are 
released from all anxiety, from all distrust, from all dis- 
content, from all fear of the present and dread of the 
future, and are made victors over this world in which we 
live, are given a new peace, a new confidence, a new as- 
surance, a new aim in life and a new inspiration for its 
living. All this is salvation according to Luther and all 
this we can have now as truly as in the future. 

There are various things involved in this idea of salva- 
tion, things congenial to the modern spirit even if not the 
fruit of it. For instance it will be seen at once that this 
notion of salvation gives a new value to the present life. 
According to the old view, this life is simply a probation 
or a preparation for a life to come. Whatever value it has 
is given by the future, in itself it is worthless. This world 
is a vale of tears, a miserable place full of evil, and the 



264 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

one desire of the truly religious man must be to escape 
from it. Luther on the other hand put a new meaning 
into the present and gave it a worth of its own indepen- 
dent of the future. One's occupation in life was no 
longer to be judged by the way in which it prepared a 
man for heaven but by its usefulness here. This meant 
the recognition of the sacredness of callings even the 
most secular and the most humble, and the possibility of 
serving God in worldly profession, business and trade as 
truly as in monastery or priesthood. Upon this Luther 
laid the greatest emphasis and his teaching has been of 
tremendous social importance. For many centuries it had 
been supposed that the most truly religious life was that of 
the monk or nun who lived apart from the distractions and 
pleasures of the world in religious devotion and in the 
practice of rigorous self-discipline. To be in the midst of 
society, to engage in trade, to indulge in the pleasures of 
friendship, to marry and enjoy the delights of home, all 
this was legitimate, to be sure, but distinctly less honorable 
than the life of celibacy and seclusion. Other-worldli- 
ness was the dominant note of traditional Christian piety. 
Not to make a man a good citizen of this world but to 
prepare him for citizenship in another and altogether dif- 
ferent world beyond the grave, where there is neither 
buying nor selling, eating nor drinking, marrying nor 
giving in marriage, and where life is a continuous and 
uninterrupted round of devotional exercises — to prepare 
him for such a world was thought to be the supreme aim 
of Christianity. And so the more unworldly this life 
could be made, the more completely detached from the 
ordinary interests and concerns of earth, the more Chris- 
tian it seemed. Even within Protestantism this Catholic 
ideal has had wide influence, but it has never found so 
consistent and thoroughgoing an expression as in Cathol- 
icism, and Luther's message of the sacredness of this 



PROTESTANTISM 265 

life and the holiness of ordinary human callings and 
relationships has never been wholly forgotten. To this 
principle he gave repeated and eloquent expression both 
by word and deed. His writings, particularly his sermons, 
are full of it. The Christian is already a saved man and 
his life here on earth is as truly sacred as his life in heaven 
will be, and in it he may express as truly as there his 
Christian character as a son of God, not by detaching 
himself from employment and family and friends, and 
giving himself to ascetic and religious practices, but by 
doing the daily task faithfully and joyfully, with trust 
in God and with devotion to His will. 

Listen for instance to such passages as the following, 
taken almost at random from Luther's sermons, " What 
you do in your house is worth as much as if you did it 
up in heaven for our Lord God. For what we do in our 
calling here on earth in accordance with His word and 
command he counts as if it were done in heaven for 
Him." " We should also learn that our outer life and 
position being rooted in God's word and sanctified by it, 
are a genuine service of God in which he is well pleased. 
It is not necessary that he who would serve God should 
undertake some special kind of a calling as the monks 
have done. Let him remain in his calling and do what his 
master or his office and position require. That is to serve 
God truly." " It looks like a great thing when a monk 
renounces everything and goes into a cloister, carries on 
a life of asceticism, fasts, watches, prays, etc. . . . On the 
other hand it looks like a small thing when a maid cooks 
and cleans and does other house-work. But because God's 
command is there, even such a small work must be 
praised as a service of God far surpassing the holiness and 
asceticism of all monks and nuns. For here there is no 
command of God. But there God's command is ful- 



266 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

filled, that one should honor father and mother and help 
in the care of the home." 

An important corollary of this estimate of the common 
life of man was the breaking down of the old distinction 
between the clergy and the laity. The life of the clergy- 
man is no more sacred than that of the layman. Faith 
in God and devotion to His will make him as good as the 
faithful and believing merchant or shoemaker but no 
better. There is no such thing as a special priesthood 
or clerical class endowed with grace, not shared by others. 
Religion becomes a thing of the people, not merely 
of the priest. Upon them rest its responsibilities and 
to them belong its privileges as truly as to him. It was 
therefore no mere dictate of expediency which led Luther 
in his famous Address to the German Nobility to call 
upon them to take up the work of religious and ecclesi- 
astical reformation. The Protestant Reformation was, in- 
deed, in a very true sense, a lay and not a clerical move- 
ment. The clergy are only the representatives of the 
people and their ministers or servants in religious things. 
Let the people, not the hierarchy, rule. 

Still further, Luther's conception of salvation involved 
a new religious liberty. It will be seen at once how this 
was the case. If there was nothing that a man could do 
to earn his salvation, he was freed at one stroke from a 
great deal that had lain upon him in the past and had 
bound him in the days that were gone. He was free, for 
instance, from the old bondage to the church. The church 
had been supposed to be the sole ark of salvation, in which 
one might escape destruction and be carried through this 
evil world into the bliss beyond. But if a man is saved 
now and here, his old dependence upon it and his old 
bondage to it become unnecessary. So too with his bond- 
age to the clergy. The clergy had been regarded as the 
agents of salvation, alone able to dispense the divine grace 



PROTESTANTISM 267 

without which no man could attain the future reward. 
With a free and present salvation their ministrations are 
no longer indispensable. The same is true of one's bond- 
age to creed and Bible. The free man is no longer 
obliged to accept the one or the other in order to be 
saved. In the same way bondage to the sacraments is 
overcome. A man's salvation no longer depends upon tak- 
ing this or that sacrament whether it be the seven of 
traditional Catholicism or the two of Protestantism. He is 
already completely saved, already truly a child of God. 

Of course, this does not mean that a man cannot use 
these things. Luther insisted that all of them had their 
place and value to the Christian. He did not repudiate 
the church; in it the gospel of salvation is proclaimed. 
He did not repudiate the clergy; they preach the 
word, bringing the knowledge of God as revealed in 
Christ which often a man cannot otherwise get. He did 
not repudiate creed or Bible ; he framed a creed for him- 
self, and as every one knows he made immense use of 
the Bible and emphasized its superlative worth as a means 
of grace. In the same way, according to Luther, may the 
sacraments be used. They too are means of grace de- 
claring the forgiving love of God in Christ. But man is 
released from bondage and subjection to all these things. 
He is a free man because he is saved as he sees the reve- 
lation of God in Christ and gains the peace which makes 
him victor over the world. This is the essence of the 
Protestant principle of liberty as set forth by Martin 
Luther. 

But I would have you notice that too often we stop 
here in our description of Protestantism. We say that it 
released Christians from a yoke which they found heavy 
and grievous, and made them new and free men in Christ 
Jesus. But why ? What is the good of liberty, if liberty 
be all? We often talk of it as if it were itself a bless- 



268 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

ing, whatever the use made of it. We often, in America 
particularly, represent it as a sufficient end in itself. As a 
matter of fact, that is not the way Martin Luther inter- 
preted it. He did not think it enough for a man to be set 
free, he must be set free in order to do something else. 
And what was that something? According to Luther we 
are set free in order that we may serve our brethren as 
Christ did. " To love God and one's neighbor " he says in 
one of his sermons, " is the greatest and most excellent of 
all works even though it seem the commonest and hum- 
blest." And what he means by loving God and one's 
neighbor is made abundantly clear in the words — " What 
is it to serve God and do His will ? Nothing else than to 
show mercy to one's neighbor. For it is our neighbor who 
needs our service, God in heaven needs it not." Thus 
Luther sums up the whole duty of man as the service of 
his fellows. It is most beautiful and inspiring to see how 
in sermon after sermon he shows what such service means 
and how rich and manifold a thing it is as it expresses 
itself in the various relationships and conditions of 
life, between husband and wife, parents and children, 
tradesman and customer, master and servant, prince and 
people, toward friends, strangers and enemies ; on the 
part of rich and poor, learned and ignorant, high and 
low alike. He was so deeply concerned in the practical 
application of the principle that he even ventured in 
his preaching and writing into the sphere of finance and 
undertook to show how love may find play in the world of 
business as well as elsewhere. In an interesting and 
striking tract on Trade and Usury he remarks that buy- 
ing and selling are legitimate and Christian, but he con- 
demns the practice of buying low and selling high, and 
denounces corners, monopolies, and combinations in re- 
straint of trade. Never has love of one's neighbor ex- 
pressing itself in social service, been more persistently 



PROTESTANTISM 269 

emphasized and never has it been raised to a higher plane, 
being made the entire sum and substance of man's service 
of God. 

But in order that one shall be able to serve one's neigh- 
bor it is necessary according to Luther that one shall be 
set free from all anxiety about oneself. No one, he 
says, can give himself in disinterested and self-forgetful 
love to the service of his neighbor so long as he is anxious 
and troubled about his own fate. Only when he has 
gained assurance of salvation through faith in Christ is 
he set free from the shadow of fear and enabled to de- 
vote himself unreservedly to his brother's good. So long 
as he feels himself unsaved he cannot do otherwise as 
a serious-minded and religious man than give thought and 
time to his own state. Whether he shall pass eternity 
with God or with the devil must be a question of para- 
mount concern not to the selfish man merely but to the 
man of noblest religious aspirations. And so to be set 
free from anxiety about one's own eternal destiny is the 
first step toward singleness of devotion to the service of 
one's fellows. In his wonderful tract on Christian Liberty 
Luther undertakes to show that just because the Chris- 
tian man is " the most free lord of all and subject to 
none/' he is and can be " the most dutiful servant of all 
and subject to every one." As he says in one of his ser- 
mons, " You must have heaven and be already saved be- 
fore you can do good works." And again, " When you 
know that you have through Christ a good and gracious 
God who will forgive your sins and remember them no 
more, and are now a child of eternal blessedness, a lord 
over heaven and earth with Christ, then you have nothing 
more to do than to go about your business and serve 
your neighbor." 

The following passages in his tract on Christian Liberty 
set out his principles more clearly than anything I could 



270 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

possibly say. In them I think we shall get at the es- 
sence of Protestantism taken at its best. " Who then 
can comprehend the riches and glory of the Christian 
life? It can do all things, has all things, and is in want 
of nothing; is lord over sin, death and hell and at the 
same time is the obedient and useful servant of all. But 
alas, it is at this day unknown throughout the world; 
it is neither preached nor sought after, so that we are 
quite ignorant about our own name, why we are and are 
called Christians. We are certainly called so from Christ 
who is not absent but dwells among us, provided, that is, 
we believe in him and are reciprocally and mutually one 
the Christ of the other, doing to our neighbor as Christ 
does to us." 

" A Christian man needs no work, no law for his 
salvation, for by faith he is free from all law, and in per- 
fect freedom does gratuitously all that he does, seeking 
nothing either of profit or of salvation, since by the grace 
of God he is already saved and rich in all things through 
his faith." 

" Man does not live for himself alone in this mortal 
body, in order to work on its account, but also for all 
men on earth; nay he lives only for others and not for 
himself. For it is to this end that he brings his own body 
into subjection that he may be able to serve others more 
sincerely and more freely." 

" It is the part of a Christian to take care of his own 
body for the very purpose that by its soundness and well- 
being he may be able to labor and to acquire and preserve 
property for the aid of those who are in want, that thus 
the stronger member may serve the weaker and we may 
be children of God, thoughtful and busy one for another, 
bearing one another's burdens and so fulfilling the law of 
Christ. Here is the truly Christian life, here is faith 
really working by love, when a man applies himself with 



PROTESTANTISM 271 

joy and love to the works of that freest servitude in which 
he serves others voluntarily and for naught, himself 
abundantly satisfied in the fulness and riches of his own 
faith." 

This is the heart of the gospel as Luther understood 
it — liberty in order to service. Set free from all bond- 
age, set free from all those things which keep a man 
cautious about himself and careful lest he make a mistake 
here or go wrong there and so imperil his future salva- 
tion, he gives himself in disinterested love to the good 
of others. This is essential Protestantism as preached by 
its greatest exponent — Martin Luther. 

But when we look at those who followed him we dis- 
cover that this gospel of Luther was not understood and 
made effective by them. Perhaps we might say that the 
great trouble was that Luther proclaimed the liberty only 
of the Christian man, the man already saved, and that he 
left the natural, the unsaved man under the same pall 
that had lain upon him for centuries, and as time went 
on the shadow of the natural man fell again upon the 
Christian too. In other words, the old traditional dis- 
trust of man came back to trouble Protestantism. The 
result was that Protestants were involved again in the 
old bondage to church, to clergy, to sacraments, to Bible 
and to creed. Life came again to be regarded in the 
same old way as a probation for a life to come. What- 
ever the theologians might say about it, and they 
have usually succeeded in one way or another in avoid- 
ing the explicit statement of it, the notion of probation 
has had practically as much control in Protestantism as in 
Catholicism. " It is the common doctrine of all religion/' 
Bishop Butler remarks in his famous Analogy, " that this 
life is a probation for a life to come." The average Prot- 
estant has commonly been in the habit of setting himself 
to work, in spite of his belief about salvation by faith 



2J2 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

alone, to earn the reward of a blessed immortality. If 
he could not do it by entering a monastery he would do it 
by eschewing the pleasures of the world, living a life 
of austerity and self-denial, avoiding this or that amuse- 
ment and occupation, giving to charity, attending church 
regularly, receiving the sacraments, accepting the creed, 
believing the Bible, — in these and countless ways show- 
ing his devotion to God. 

The unprejudiced historian, looking back over the his- 
tory of Protestantism must recognize that to all intents 
and purposes there was as much bondage in the new 
churches from the middle of the sixteenth century on as 
in the old church. To be sure some things were different. 
Protestants did not recognize the authority of the Pope, 
they had only two sacraments instead of seven, they re- 
jected transubstantiation and purgatory and the wor- 
ship of Mary and the saints. But these are only minor 
differences. Essentially they were one, and Protestants 
as truly as Catholics were living again in the old world. 
Luther's principle of liberty failed to work out its legiti- 
mate results. The old which he retained was too strong 
and the new was overlaid and hidden. It is the greatest 
mistake in the world to suppose that our Protestant fore- 
fathers stood positively and consciously for liberty in 
the religious life. They stood, or at any rate most of 
them did, for bondage not freedom. But in the conflict 
of the creeds, in the conflict of Protestant with Roman 
Catholic, of Calvinist with Lutheran, of Puritan with 
Anglican, the old intolerance became ineffective and 
liberty had a chance to grow in spite of them. Through 
the war of the sects, in fact, our modern religious free- 
dom was made a reality. 

As we hurry down through subsequent generations 
we discover that in the eighteenth century the modern 
spirit which had begun to take possession of Europe in 



PROTESTANTISM 273 

the fifteenth century, and had been prevented from get- 
ting into control by the Reformation, again laid hold upon 
the world and entered for the first time into Protestant 
thought. The old belief in the total depravity of man, 
the old belief in the utter badness of this world, the old 
belief that this life is nothing more than a probation for 
a life to come, all these were widely discredited in the 
eighteenth century, and there came in their place a con- 
fidence in man's powers, a respect for and devotion to this 
world, and a new valuation of the present life. 

In consequence there is to-day a new Protestantism 
and we must take account of it, as well as of the old in 
asking what Protestantism is. There is going on now in 
Protestant circles a reinterpretation of Christianity in the 
light of the modern spirit. And this reinterpretation is 
genuinely Protestant, for it is at one with Luther's read- 
ing of the gospel and reproduces his controlling interest. 
Were it otherwise, it might seem out of place to call it 
Protestantism, it might seem indeed that only by abandon- 
ing Protestantism as well as Catholicism could one reach 
a religion suited to the modern age and congenial to its 
spirit. But as a matter of fact, the modern reading of 
Christianity is at three important points a return to the 
original Protestant platform, — in its recognition of a 
present salvation, in its gospel of liberty, and in its em- 
phasis on social service. As one looks at the Protestant 
world to-day one sees everywhere emphasis upon the 
fact that salvation is not something for the future life 
alone or primarily. Multitudes still believe in the future 
life, Protestants and Catholics alike, and perhaps as de- 
voutly as ever, but the emphasis is changed, and instead 
of being told by Protestant preachers and teachers that 
salvation means bliss in a future state, men are told that 
it means the gaining of a principle, of a purpose, of a 
faith here and now which makes them superior to all the 



274 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

ills of life and sets them free from all fear and anxiety, 
including the fear and anxiety which religion itself often 
brings as men look forward to the dreadful penalties of 
eternal damnation. 

And moreover the liberty which Martin Luther 
preached has come now in these more recent decades 
really to be an accomplished fact. In many parts of the 
Protestant world men are actually, not simply theoretic- 
ally, but actually finding themselves free from the old 
bondage to the church, to sacraments, to creed, to Scrip- 
tures. Not that they are repudiating these things, in many 
cases they are making large use of them, but they are no 
longer subject to them, and in this new liberty they are 
true to the Protestant spirit. 

But still more than this, many Protestants are recogniz- 
ing to-day that they are set free in order that they may 
serve. This is an age in which to a degree true of no 
other age, Christianity is interpreted in terms of service 
of one's fellows. To-day Christian liberty is coming more 
and more to mean not simply satisfaction with our 
own lot, not simply confidence in God to give us what we 
need and make us happy, but devotion to God's great pur- 
pose, the promotion in this world of the kingdom of God, 
the kingdom of love and sympathy and service among 
men. This is the modern Protestant interpretation of 
Christianity and this, I say, must be taken account of in 
one's estimate of Protestantism. 

Protestantism has been a great many things in the 
past. But it began in the teaching of Martin Luther as 
liberty in order to service and this, after many centuries 
of emphasis upon other and alien matters, it is becoming 
again in our own day. If there be anything then dis- 
tinctively and characteristically Protestant, anything that 
binds the latest and the earliest Protestantism together, 
it is just this — liberty in order to service. 



XVII 

REFORM JUDAISM 

By Rabbi Joseph Silverman, D.D. 

Rabbi of Temple Emanu-El, New York City 

There are thousands and thousands of people in the 
world who do not know that there are two great sects in 
modern Jewry. Both are important; both are absolutely 
necessary. Of course when I say " absolutely necessary " 
I speak as a Reformer. The orthodox would not grant 
that the " reform " is necessary at all. Our orthodox 
people are just like any other orthodox people; they are 
rigid, strict ; anything that is not orthodox is not worthy 
of consideration. But the Reformers are just like other 
Reformers; they grant the necessity for orthodoxy, be- 
cause if there had been no orthodoxy there would be no 
reform; all the recruits to reform come from orthodoxy, 
and therefore we regard orthodoxy as very essential to 
the existence of reform. 

This is by way of preface. Also by way of preface I 
would say that I run a risk of encroaching on the space 
at my disposal, because I cannot treat of Reform Judaism 
without practically giving a survey of thirty-five hundred 
years of Jewish history. 

Reform Judaism is not, as has so often been falsely 
claimed, the creation of an individual or a coterie of 
individuals, but is the natural result of that fundamental 
law of evolution that operates in nature, among nations 
and among individuals. All things in heaven and earth 
are subject to the influence of natural development, and 

275 



276 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

therefore the history of civilization is but a record of the 
world's constant changes and progress. Religion is not 
exempt from the operation of this natural law, and keeps 
pace, though sometimes slowly, owing to the reactionary 
forces at work amongst interested men, with the ad- 
vances of the world in intellectual products, namely, in 
philosophy, science, art, music and literature. A miracle 
to prevent Judaism from being influenced by the law of 
evolution has never happened, and therefore we have 
great cause for rejoicing to-day that our faith has not, 
like some others which too long resisted the march of 
progress, been relegated to the limbo of defunct institu- 
tions. Judaism still lives, despite all its detractors and 
persecutors, despite all misundertanding and misrepre- 
sentation, because it " hitched its chariot to a star ", be- 
cause it remained always in touch with the world's best 
thought, its latest truth, its greatest achievements in sci- 
ence and philosophy, with the imperative needs of pro- 
gressive humanity. 

Judaism began as a reform of the world's religions, for 
Abraham was that first bold reformer who had the cour- 
age to break the idols and to proclaim belief in the unity 
and spirituality of the Godhead. Moses, in accordance 
with the needs of a later generation, and to meet and 
combat the perverted notions of religion that Israel had 
acquired in Egypt, reformed and amplified the simple 
religion of the patriarchs. Mosaism, with its animal sac- 
rifices and its Levitical cult, was the orthodoxy of 
Palestine until the Prophets, with a greater insight into 
the needs of their time and of the future of Judaism, 
preached a new reform, a religion divorced from the 
mere mechanical practice of ceremonies, and based 
rather upon the ethical import of our ancient faith; 
divorced from a purely tribal or national character, and 
cast into a form that would make it universally accept- 



REFORM JUDAISM 2.>tf 

able. No one dare charge the Prophets of Israel with 
being perverters of Judaism, and when they looked 
forward to a time when Judaism would be the religion 
of all mankind, the light of the Gentiles, as the Bible 
has it, they were guided by the highest interests of Israel 
and of humanity, they were acting under the inspiration 
of Heaven. 

And here I would note that when some of the modern 
rabbis preach, in the spirit of the Prophets, a universal 
Judaism, they are characterized by some as perverters of 
the faith ! 

After the Prophets there followed in rapid succes- 
sion several new phases of Judaism, namely, Hellenism, 
the result of the contact of the Jew with Greek life, and 
these sects, Sadducees, Pharisees and Essenes. 

I would like to digress here and say a few words about 
these three sects, because I am almost certain that a 
great many people have a perverted idea of the Sad- 
ducees, Pharisees and Essenes. I have read much 
written by Christian Biblical scholars, who teach a 
Christian world about these three sects and give it a per- 
verted idea of them. I have heard Christian ministers 
hold up the Pharisees to derision and ridicule. Why 
so? Simply because they do not understand; they do 
not know who the Pharisees were; they do not know 
the principles that guided the Pharisees or the Sadducees 
or the Essenes. 

In brief let me say that the Pharisees were a fine 
class of people, strict, honest, upright followers of the 
ancient faith. They were as strict in their faith as you 
and I are to-day. They would not brook any inter- 
ference with their conscience and with their devotion 
to what they believed was a revelation from Heaven. 
The Pharisees were not hypocrites as they are commonly 



278 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

described to be; they were stern, sturdy, strict believers 
of the faith. 

The Sadducees were a little lax in their devotion to 
their religion, and combined with their practice a certain 
concession to the social and political life of the day. 

The Essenes were a small sect of ascetics more rigor- 
ous than the Pharisees. But before these three sects 
could work out their salvation, Rome crushed the Jewish 
commonwealth in the year 70 of the common era, scat- 
tered the people throughout the world, and seemingly 
destroyed all hope of ever resuscitating the idea of a 
universal Judaism; and out of the ensuing chaos in the 
house of Israel there came forth Rabbinism, a new 
Judiasm, vastly different from Mosaism, Prophetism and 
Hellenism. 

The Rabbis, after the destruction of the Palestinian 
kingdom, sought to create a substitute for Jewish nation- 
ality, and established a kind of national Judaism, laying 
great stress upon the preservation of the letter of the 
Scriptures, instituting ritualistic services to correspond 
to the animal sacrifices, which were at an end, building up 
ceremonies based on forced interpretations of figurative 
Biblical texts, and creating a traditional law embodied 
in the Talmud, equal in authority with the Biblical 
commands. Thus Judaism was centered in a strict 
Biblical and a rigid Rabbinical law. To add to the trials 
that arose in Judaism, the various nations of Europe 
forced the Hebrew people to live in Ghettos, where they 
were compelled to pass a " cribbed, cabined and confined " 
existence. Thus through repression from without, 
through segregation from within, through a strict 
following of the letter of the Bible and of the Talmud, 
the progress of Judaism was retarded for over a thousand 
years. 

In the meantime, however, the law of evolution was 



REFORM JUDAISM 279 

still in force. The American and the French revolu- 
tions had been successful, and a new spirit of liberty and 
tolerance had gone forth in the world. America and 
France opened their doors to the Jews, and very soon 
all the walls of the European Ghettos were battered 
down and the Jew stepped forth into the light of a 
civilization that was long denied him, into contact with 
the new sciences and philosophies of the day, the literary, 
the political, the social and the religious activities of 
modern life. At once the incongruity of the Ghetto 
Judaism and its bizarre peculiarities with this modern 
culture was apparent, and the danger was imminent of 
retaining the old Ghetto spirit and Ghetto Judaism intact 
and again losing the opportunity that the larger freedom 
afforded. When the new world of thought invited young 
Israel, the old religion held it back, and many were then 
on the point of repudiating the old faith altogether and 
of entering the new world of thought as free-lances. This 
is a point that many omit in their interpretation of Juda- 
ism. They fail to see that the great danger in Israel 
was of losing adherence to the old faith and of not 
finding any substitute for it. A severe struggle ensued 
between Rabbinical Judaism, and the new life. In this 
exigency the law of evolution again asserted itself. The 
progressive leaders of Israel caught the spirit of Judaism, 
and proclaimed that the spirit, the essence of the faith, 
can live and shall live even in a new form, that Judaism 
can and must be reconciled with modern life. They 
realized that Judaism had undergone many changes in 
the past since it was first proclaimed by Abraham, that 
it had always lived under new forms, under the forms 
of Mosaism, Prophetism, Hellenism, Sadduceeism, Phari- 
seeism, Rabbinism, and that it could again be rehabilitated 
in accordance with the needs of the new day. 

Thus Reformed Judaism was based upon the principle 



280 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

of progress that has always prevailed in our faith from 
the very beginning, and that has justified the changes 
demanded by the new conditions, in the interest of the 
preservation of our religion. The principle of the pro- 
gressive Judaism once admitted made the way clear for 
recasting the old doctrines into new forms. First of all 
the relation of Judaism to the Bible and the Talmud had 
to be readjusted. To Rabbinical Judaism the letter of the 
Bible was all-important, and the Talmud, the traditional 
law, which is the Rabbinical interpretation of the Bible, 
was made of equal authority with the Scriptures. This 
rigid acceptance of Biblical and Talmudic law was at 
once seen by the progressive leaders to be in conflict with 
all advance. The principle of evolution must prevail, 
and therefore the Bible and the Talmud must be subject 
to it. 

Is not that thought worthy of our highest consider- 
ation, that the basic principle in the universe is the law of 
evolution, and that even the Bible and religion must be 
subject to it? 

Reformers insisted that Bible and Talmud were not 
absolutely binding authority in Israel, but were only- 
history and literature of Judaism's development, and were 
subject to constantly new interpretations. Judaism is 
not dependent altogether upon Bible and Talmud. If we 
were to-day to destroy the Bible and the Talmud we 
could not destroy Judaism. They did not create Judaism ; 
Judaism created them, and Judaism was preached by 
Abraham, by Isaac and by Jacob, and by Moses and cer- 
tainly by the Prophets, before there ever existed any 
Bible and before there ever existed any Talmud. And if 
Judaism existed before the Bible and the Talmud Judaism 
is independent of them; they must be interpreted in ac- 
cordance with the essence of Judaism. 

That is the fundamental principle of the Jewish 



REFORM JUDAISM 281 

Reformer; Bible and Talmud cannot be absolutely bind- 
ing forever for they are the works of man. And there- 
fore Bible and Talmud must be the outgrowth of their 
own time, must be fallible and subject to change. The 
authority of a book does not lie in the whole book but 
only in the eternal truths that the book contains, and the 
Bible is only so far authoritative as it teaches eternal 
truth, and Reform Judaism accepts the eternal truths of 
the Scriptures and not the particular laws given for 
particular conditions. Reformers do not repudiate the 
Scriptures or, as has been charged, the Talmud, but accept 
the spirit and not wholly the letter of both. They refuse 
to carry further the yoke of the Torah (" Torah " is the 
Hebrew word for Law) and the burden of Rabbinism. 
Reformers decline to abdicate their own reason and 
subject it to the reason of men who lived in bygone days 
under other and adverse conditions, namely, those of the 
Ghetto and of persecution. Reformers realize that 
Abraham, Moses and the Prophets taught a Judaism 
in accordance with their best reason, which is only 
another term for revelation also in the opinion of 
Maimonides. 

Parenthetically, I would say that we do not believe 
revelation to be anything supernatural. Revelation is 
only the harmony of man's highest reason with the Divine 
mind. And from that standpoint revelation is possible; 
from any other standpoint, according to our humble 
opinion, it does not exist. 

We realize, too, that the rabbis who made the Talmud 
made it in accordance with their best judgment ; but it is 
absurd to say that the judgment of men of a past age, that 
was necessarily influenced by Ghetto life, by constant 
fear of oppressors and by their own intellectual horizon, 
is to be the law for Israel of to-day, for emancipated 
Israel, that has entered upon the larger life of the modern 



282 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

world. We have the right, and it is also our duty, to 
throw off the bondage of the letter of the Bible and the 
Talmud, and the servile worship of tradition, and to 
interpret the spirit of our religion in accordance with 
the age in which we live, the reason that we possess, the 
conscience that we cherish and the ideals that we harbor 
for the Judaism of the future. 

What are these ideals of Reformed Judaism? Not 
the same as those of Rabbinism or modern Orthodoxy. 
Based on the fundamental principles of progressive 
Judaism and the spirit of Abrahamism, Mosaism and 
Prophetism, Reformers believe that the mission of 
Judaism is spiritual and not political ; that it is inclusive 
and not exclusive, that t is universal and not national. 
Reform Judaism is adverse to national Judaism. When 
I use the word " national," I want to say, for the sake 
of those who are not initiated into these terms from the 
Jewish standpoint, that " national " as applied to Judaism 
means a Palestinian nationalism, and has no reference to 
American or English or French nationalism. 

Reform Judaism is adverse to nationalism, and regards 
the ancient Palestinian kingdom not as the objective 
point of Israel but only as an incident in the progressive 
march away from Egypt to humanity, and looks upon 
the loss of Palestine not as a punishment for the sins of 
some of the ancient Jewish kings and the Jewish idolaters, 
and certainly not as punishment for the rejection of 
Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah; not as an everlasting 
calamity, but as a decree of Heaven indicating that Israel 
did not possess a genius for national government ; that it 
had to lose its narrow domain because it was destined for 
a wider empire, that of the whole world. 

Reform Judaism teaches that we do not live to-day in 
exile amongst the nations of the world, but by right in 
the lands to which Providence has directed us, and we 



REFORM JUDAISM 283 

have as much right to live in America, in England, in 
France or in any country, as we ever had to live in 
Palestine. 

Reform Judaism does not hold out to the Jew the 
belief in a personal Messiah who will deliver us from the 
nations and lead us back again to the ancient land, but 
teaches rather that Israel is its own Messiah and must 
save itself by intellectual and spiritual progress amongst 
the nations in which it dwells. As the Prophet told 
Israel in Babylon, " Seek ye the welfare of the city . . 

for in its welfare will ye fare well," so the 

prophet still preaches to us in the same spirit. Because, 
forsooth, there is still persecution in Russia and in other 
parts of the world, it does not follow that Judaism must 
surrender its lofty ideal to become the Messiah of man- 
kind, a teacher and preacher of a universal religion, and 
narrow its mission down to Jewish nationalism and an 
incrusted faith. No! Reformers believe in the widest 
distribution of Israel, in the utmost expansion of Judaism, 
so that it may some day become the universal religion, 
or so that it may, at least in our time, take the same place 
in the family of religions as do other universal religions. 

Reformers deny the belief in a bodily resurrection. 
Such a belief, is interpreted to mean that when the Pales- 
tinian kingdom will again exist all the dead will resur- 
rect and take their places therein. 

In furtherance of their ideals, Reformers have dis- 
tinguished in Judaism between the essentials and the 
non-essentials, the essentials being as follows: 

First: Acceptance of the belief in the unity and 
spirituality of the Godhead, based upon the Biblical 
doctrine : " Hear, O Israel ! The Lord our God, the 
Lord is one." 

Second : Worship of God through suitable prayers 
and ceremonies in harmony with modern conditions, 



284 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

based upon the Biblical doctrine : " Thou shalt love the 
Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul and 
with all thy might." 

Third: Obedience to the moral law, especially the 
Decalogue, based upon the Biblical injunctions : " These 
are the laws which thou shalt keep in order that thou 
shalt live through them ; " " thou shalt love thy fellow- 
man as thyself;" — "Obedience is better than Sacrifice. 

Fourth: Salvation or spiritual regeneration through 
righteousness, based upon the Biblical phrase : " He hath 
shewed thee, O man, what is good, and what doth the 
Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, 
and to walk humbly with thy God ? " 

Fifth : The law of eternal progress, leading us ever 
nearer to perfection, based on the verses : " And God 
through Moses told the children of Israel that they should 
go forward." " The path of the just is as the shining 
light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day." 

Sixth: The ultimate redemption and the unity of all 
mankind, based on the Biblical teaching : " Have we not 
all one Father ? Hath not one God created us all ? Why, 
then, shall we deal treacherously one against the other ? " 

Seventh: The mission of Israel as the world's priest- 
people, based upon the doctrine of the Bible : " Ye shall 
be a kingdom of priests and a holy people," and upon the 
words given to Abraham : " Through thee shall all the 
nations of the world be blessed." 

Eighth: Belief in the Messianic era foreshadowed by 
the Prophets, a time when men " shall beat their swords 
into plowshares and their spears into pruninghooks and 
learn the arts of war no more." 

In the spirit of these principles and ideals Reformers 
have revised the Jewish prayer-book, have eliminated from 
it every expression of a purely national character, the 
prayer for the rebuilding of the Palestinian kingdom, for 



REFORM JUDAISM 285 

the coming of the Redeemer to Zion, for the restoration of 
the ancient temple, the prayer for the resurrection of the 
dead; and have retained or substituted prayers for the 
welfare of the country in which we live, for the redemp- 
tion of mankind from evil, for the establishment of God's 
kingdom on earth, for immortality of the soul. 

Reform Judaism has ceased to keep a day of mourn- 
ing for the loss of the ancient Palestinian kingdom, be- 
cause it accepts the decree of heaven, the logic of incon- 
trovertible conditions, and looks forward with hope of 
success to a spiritual conquest of humanity. 

Reform Judaism is not destructive, as has been often 
claimed. It is not a negation ; it is a positive con- 
structive religion. While it has permitted laxity in the 
practice of the dietary laws and the performance of certain 
rites, while it may have abrogated other laws and prac- 
tices, it has on the whole not taken away anything from 
Judaism that was essential for the preservation of its 
essence ; but has rather engrafted upon it many new forms 
that have redounded to the dignity of the religious wor- 
ship and the permanent benefit of the faith. It has re- 
moved the head-covering from men in the synagogue, and 
has abolished the women's gallery, instituted family pews, 
prayers and sermons in the vernacular, the organ and the 
mixed choir, with modern music, in addition to traditional 
tunes. It has given us the institution of confirmation for 
boys and girls. It has retained the historical Sabbath 
and every festival that teaches an eternal truth, like the 
truths of freedom, revelation, repentance, reformation, 
thanksgiving and loyalty to one's convictions. It has in- 
stituted Friday evening and Sunday services and lectures. 
It has given us the modern religious school, has em- 
phasized the ethical points of our religion more than the 
ceremonial, and has taught that the ceremonial is only a 
means to an end, a vessel to carry the spiritual truths to 



286 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

the mind and the heart in plastic form, and when the 
vessel has become impaired it may be changed for a 
better one. 

Reform has, above all, insisted upon the precept and 
practice of the doctrines of truth, love, charity, patriotism, 
justice, humility, as the Bible has taught. It has insisted 
upon teaching that God is Truth absolute, Love absolute, 
Justice absolute in the universe. And we find all that in 
essence in the Bible and the Talmud. 

Reform Judaism is a positive, constructive, progres- 
sive religion. It is founded in the past. It looks to 
the present ; it works for the future. It cannot compromise 
with orthodoxy because it is diametrically opposed to it 
in principle regarding its attitude to the Bble, to tradi- 
tion, to Talmud, to nationality, to certain forms and cere- 
monies, as well as to its outlook for the future. But 
Reform Judaism does not, as has been sometimes claimed, 
flirt with Unitarianism, and it is not identical with Uni- 
tarianism. Unitarianism is essentially a sect of Chris- 
tianity, and finds its root in the beginnings of the Christian 
church. Reform Judaism is distinctly Jewish in principle 
and in practice, and is based on the doctrines of Abraham, 
Moses and the Prophets, even on the spirit of tradition 
which it interprets to its own use as occasion demands. 

Reform Judaism, we thus see, is not an artificial crea- 
tion, but an outgrowth, a development of Rabbinism 
touched by the law of progress and the needs of modern 
life. It has come into being because it was a necessity 
for the preservation of the Jewish faith for many thou- 
sands in the house of Israel, and it has been the means, 
through the use of the vernacular and of modern forms, 
of bringing the world to a better appreciation of the truths 
and the grandeur of our ancient faith. 

A bird can only fly if its two wings are intact, for only 
with both can it propel and majestically balance itself. 



REFORM JUDAISM 287 

So, perhaps, it is providential that Judaism has two wings, 
Orthodoxy and Reform, so that it may properly balance 
itself. With one wing only, let us say, with either wing 
only, it might fall. Let Orthodoxy and Reform, there- 
fore, both live and grow and develop together, working 
mightily, yet peacefully, to carry the ancient faith from 
virtue to virtue, from strength to strength. The Reform 
of to-day will be the Orthodoxy of to-morrow and thus 
ever will Progress and Change go down the ages — and 
the old Faith will live till the day when all men will say 
" The Lord is one and His name is one." 



XVIII 

THE RELIGIOUS ASPECTS OE SOCIALISM 

By Charles Prospero Fagnani, D.D. 

Associate Professor of the Old Testament Language and Literature, 
Union Theological Seminary 

There is no subject around which there clusters a 
greater mass of " undigested obscurities " than around the 
subject of Socialism. The tactics of the opponents of 
Socialism always reminds one of the pecularities of the 
cuttlefish. We are acquainted with the white bone that 
is inserted in the bars of a canary-bird's cage, that he may- 
whittle fris bill thereon. That comes from the cuttlefish, 
and the cuttlefish is a peculiar denizen of the deep. His 
method, when closely pursued and desirous of escaping, 
is to squirt out from his interior an inky fluid, which 
quickly causes all the water for a large distance about 
him to become black, and in the cover of the darkness he 
escapes. 

" Socialism " is the only word for the meaning of which 
people refuse to have recourse to the dictionary or to 
the encyclopedia. Every one seems to think himself at 
liberty to indulge in wild and random confusions and 
baseless identifications with such separate and distinct 
things as Communism, Anarchism, State Socialism, Uto- 
pianism, Bureaucracy, Government Ownership — by a 
government that the people do not own, — and so on ad 
libitum and ad absurdum and ad nauseam. No matter 
how often, how clearly or how painstakingly the matter 
is presented, the confusion and the misunderstanding per- 
sists, until one is almost tempted to think, when it ap- 

288 



RELIGIOUS ASPECTS OF SOCIALISM 289 

pears in reputable papers, that it is not so much the result 
of ignorance as of malevolence and of intent to deceive. 

However, we must remember that there are people who 
are congenitally incapable of clear thinking and of the 
apprehension of new ideas, so that it behooves us to 
be extremely charitable. I am reminded of an incident 
that occurred when Professor Huxley at one time was 
lecturing on the brain, — a most clear and beautiful lec- 
ture. He had described the cerebrum and the cerebellum 
and the medulla and all the contents of the cranial cavity, 
and made it all perfectly clear. At the end of the lecture 
a lady came up to him and said: " I have enjoyed what 
you said exceedingly, but there is one point that I would 
like to know about : — is the cerebellum an internal organ 
or an external organ ? " 

Now, what I am to discuss is not Socialists but Social- 
ism, — not the religion or the irreligion of socialists, 
but the religious aspects of Socialism. At the outset I 
would like to have it known that neither the name nor 
the thing is un-American. The word " socialism " is an 
American product. It was first applied to the activities 
of the Utopian socialists of this country. One of the polit- 
ical organizations in New York, which finally developed 
into the Republican party, was in its earliest activities 
controlled by socialists, namely, the Working Men's 
Party in New York, in 1835, — that is, thirteen years 
before the " Communist Manifesto." This was its plat- 
form : " The right of man to the soil. Vote yourself a 
farm. Down with monopolies, especially the United States 
Bank. Freedom of public lands. Homesteads made in- 
alienable. Abolition of all laws for the collection of debts. 
A general Bankruptcy Law. The lien of a laborer upon 
his work for his wages. Abolition of imprisonment for 
debt. Equal rights for women with men in all respects. 
Abolition of chattel slavery and wage slavery. Land 



290 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

limitation to one hundred and sixty acres. Mails in the 
United States to run on the Sabbath." 

But suppose Socialism had been made in Germany; 
what of it? Was not Protestantism made in Germany? 
Is it any the less American for that? Now, of course 
we are not sticklers for the name, and if anybody objects 
to the name, if the name is like a red rag to a bull, why, 
we will substitute another name, that is all. Any other 
name, I fear, however, would be as malodorous in the 
nostrils of those who are under the dominion of predatory 
ideals, but I will offer you a selection of names. You may 
call it " Conjunctivism ; you may call it " Mutualism " or 
" Reciprocitarianism " or " Fraternalism " — notice that 
that is not Paternalism, — " Associationism," " Co-opera- 
tionism," " Equalitarianism," " Neo-Christianism," " Pan- 
tocracy," and, lastly, if that is not enough, " Non-Preda- 
tory, Co-operative Individualism." 

I like this last name best, " Non-Predatory, Co-operative 
Individualism," because at the outset it spikes the guns 
of the confused thinkers who say " I believe in Individua- 
lism ; therefore I do not believe in Socialism." It cannot 
be repeated too often that Socialism is a means to an end, 
and that end is the complete liberation, development and 
glorification of every individual; this and this only is the 
goal of socialism. 

None deny, I suppose, that Jesus deals with religion, 
and that Moses and the Prophets deal with religion. " I 
came that men might have life," Jesus said. That means 
religion. " Thy will be done on earth ", — that is re- 
ligion. " Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself," — 
that is religion. By " religion " we mean in this connec- 
tion the Christian religion or the Jewish religion, they 
are practically the same for this purpose. The religious 
aspects of socialism, therefore, mean the Christian as- 
pects of socialism or the Jewish aspects of socialism, for 



RELIGIOUS ASPECTS OF SOCIALISM 291 

both Christianity and Judaism mean the brotherhood of 
man, the happiness of man on earth, the kingdom of 
God on earth, wherein righteousness and freedom and 
prosperity abound. 

We are coming to understand that all questions that 
affect life and human welfare are questions of religion, 
that there is nothing secular for the Christian ; all things 
are ours and all are sacred. Hence the problems of 
government, of politics, of industry and of economics are 
all religious problems. In an ideal sense the seeds of 
socialism were sown more than three thousand years ago, 
when Moses stood before Pharaoh and cried " Let my 
people go, that they may serve me." Jesus took up the 
cry when he said " I came that they might have life and 
have it abundantly ", and the motto of the Bible, Old 
Testament as well as New, is " God save the people." 

On the other hand, we must remember that socialism 
has never been tried, consequently has never been a 
failure anywhere. It is founded on a principle that the 
ancients could not accept, and that is only slowly gaining 
ground even in America, and that principle is the absolute 
and equal right that all men — yea, and women, too, — 
have to a share in the government of society and the en- 
joyment of social goods. Socialism, as we know it to- 
day, is the outcome of the profound contrast existing be- 
tween the political liberties which have been granted 
to the ruling class and the economic slavery whose yoke 
they feel all the more heavily since the acquisition of those 
very liberties. Socialism is a ferment that has come to 
stay, to adapt the words of Professor James, in con- 
nection with Pragmatism. It is as futile to try to stop 
the march of Socialism as it would be to endeavor to 
prevent the forward progress of the Muir glacier by plant- 
ing stakes along its front. Socialism is in the line of 
evolution. The entire history of the human race has 



292 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

been the gradual preparation for it. We have had 
Slavery; we have had Feudalism; we are having 
Capitalism, — and we shall have Socialism. 

Now consider for a moment what socialism does not 
stand for, — let us try to grope through the cuttlefish 
murk. In the first place, it does not stand for state 
slavery, for the government assignment of a man to a 
job. That belongs to Utopian socialism; it belongs to 
paternalism. That was Herbert Spencer's bugbear, — 
and it is a bugbear. We have got too much of that al- 
ready, the compulsory job that the man does not want and 
that he would drop at once if it were not that he would 
starve. Men will go on hunting for jobs, just as they 
used to. The only difference will be that they will find 
jobs ; they will not hunt for them in vain. 

In the second place, it does not stand for the suppression 
of the individual. I have said that before and I shall 
say it yet again ; it does not stand for the suppression of 
the individual, but, on the contrary, for the fullest 
emancipation of the individual from all the handicaps 
which at present crush individuality and even personality. 
Now, this assertion should be printed in large type on 
postal-cards and mailed every day for a year to all the 
daily newspapers, to many of our prominent citizens both 
lay and clerical, and to most of our professors of econom- 
ics. In spite of it I have no doubt that some would still 
go on squirting cuttlefish-wise. 

A leading paper recently said : " The harmfulness of 
these doctrines of socialism is that they involve an 
absolute change in the theory of property right that has 
hitherto ruled the social life of mankind." That is more 
cuttlefish work. It is absolutely mistaken and misleading. 
No change whatever in the theory of property right is 
involved. The theory of property right is that there shall 
be private property and public property, — private prop- 



RELIGIOUS ASPECTS OF SOCIALISM 293 

erty, mine and thine, — public property, ours. The only 
difference will be that many things that have been con- 
sidered to belong to the sphere of mine and thine we are 
discovering properly belong to the sphere of " ours." 

And, in the last place, socialism does not necessarily 
stand for confiscation. We have too much confiscation 
now. President Taft believes in confiscation. So far as 
I know he is not a socialist. There are the words of 
President Taft at his speech in Denver : " It seems to 
me now, as it did then, that the proper authority to reduce 
the size of fortunes is the state rather than the central 
government. Let the state pass laws of inheritance which 
shall require the division of great fortunes among the 
children of the descendants, and shall not permit a multi- 
millionaire to leave his fortune in trust so as to keep it in 
a mass. Make much more drastic the rule against 
perpetuities which obtains at common law, and then 
impose a heavy and graduated inheritance tax which shall 
enable the state to share largely in the proceeds of such 
large accumulations of wealth which could hardly have 
been brought about save through its protection and aid." 

That is confiscation, and that is advocated by President 
Taft. Now, socialism believes in a social order in which 
swollen fortunes will be impossible and therefore con- 
fiscation unnecessary. 

I want to turn now from the negative side to the 
positive, which is much more important. I want to call 
attention to some of the features of the positive program 
of socialism, the things among many others — I have to 
make a selection — that socialism stands for, and I should 
like to consider carefully whether these things have a 
Christian aspect or not. First, that a higher value be set 
upon human life, one that would make a man more prec- 
ious than fine gold. There was a president of a trust 
who, in an affable after-luncheon mood, stopped to con- 



294 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

verse with George, a stableman. " Well, George, how 
goes it? " he said, taking a dollar cigar out of his mouth. 
" Fair to middling, sir ; fair to middling," and he con- 
tinued to currycomb the bay horse while the president 
smoked and looked on in good-natured silence. " Me and 
this here horse," George said suddenly, " has worked for 
your firm sixteen years." " Well, well," said the presi- 
dent, feeling a little guilty as he thought of George's $7 
salary, " But I suppose you are both pretty highly valued, 
George. Eh?" "Well," said George, "the both of us 
took sick last week, and they got a doctor for the horse 
and they just docked my pay." 

The value that is put upon a human life in certain parts 
of the country, if it is a male life, is about $150. Here 
was the mine explosion in Monongah, in West Virginia. 
We read in the papers a couple of years ago : " They are 
cashing in widows at $150, orphans at $75. Orphans are 
cheaper than widows ; there are more of them. These 
amounts are doled out by the Company, in whose subter- 
ranean passages the horrors occurred. This pays for 
everything, and the Company gets receipts for it, — father, 
husband, tears, agony, despair. The little main street of 
unpainted buildings is quiet again; the women are not 
crying to-day; their tears have run dry. The market 
price of a human life in West Virginia has been fixed at 
$150; thoroughbred horses bring as much as $5,000." 

Socialism proposes to make human life more precious. 
The Christian aspect of this is suggested by the text : 
" Is not a man of more value than a sheep (or a horse) ? " 

Next, Socialism proposes that there shall be more 
private property for everybody, more widespread owner- 
ship of wealth. It believes in the sacredness of private 
property, the right of a man to his earnings and to the 
whole of his earnings. The Christian aspect of that is: 
" All these things shall be added to you, — life abundant." 



RELIGIOUS ASPECTS OF SOCIALISM 295 

Next, that dividing up shall cease, that each shall keep 
what belongs to him and not be obliged to share it with 
somebody else who has no right to it; that no longer a 
part of the earnings, shall be appropriated and called 
" profits." The Christian aspect of that is : " Do unto 
others as ye would have others do unto you." 

Socialism believes in the preservation and the extension 
and the glorification of the American Home, that the motto 
" God bless our flat " shall mean something that is worth 
while. It believes in the sanctity of the family. It 
believes that no women or children should be exiled from 
the home to work in the factories. It puts a premium on 
conjugal love by making it possible for all. It will do 
away with the necessity for suicide on the part of young 
men who are engaged to be married and are so hopeless 
of their ability to maintain a family that they take their 
lives in despair, as was done by a young Jew in this city a 
few days ago. It proposes to give parents time and 
opportunity to love and to nurture their children, to get 
acquainted with their children. It proposes to make large 
families a blessing and not a curse. 

Again, Socialism proposes to reduce to the lowest 
terms, if not to do away with altogether, the hideous 
communism in women that disgraces our civilization to- 
day, by giving economic freedom to women so that they 
shall not have to take to the streets; to give them the 
protection of the ballot so that their industrial and social 
rights will be preserved. It aims also to make it econom- 
ically easier for men to marry while they are young. 

Socialism purposes the glorification of childhood; that 
all children shall have a fair chance, that they shall not 
come into the world handicapped; that they shall have 
equal and abundant opportunity for health, decency, 
education, joy, — no more child labor in mine or factory. 



296 UNITY OF, RELIGIONS 

The Christian aspect of that is : " Suffer little children 
to come unto me." 

Socialism proposes the full development of the individ- 
ual. This is the third time I have come back to that 
point. The full blossoming of personality, emancipation 
from the crushing, hopeless, monotonous, personality- 
destroying drudgery; leisure for creation and recreation, 
and art, and amusement, and hobbies. To-day all this is 
impossible for the vast majority, all their waking is 
mortgaged to keeping body and soul together. 

Socialism proposes to abolish materialism, the evil 
materialism that holds us in its serpent coils to-day, the 
eternal grind for the bare means of subsistence, the con- 
stant anxiety with regard to what we shall eat and what 
we shall drink and what we shall put on, what is to be- 
come of us when we fall sick, what is to happen to us when 
we reach old age, — this ceaseless worry about material 
needs. It will give a chance for ideals. The Christian 
aspect of that is : " Take no thought what ye shall eat, or 
what ye shall drink, or what ye shall put on," because all 
these things will be provided as a matter of course. 

Socialism proposes the abolition of zvage slavery, the 
dependence of men on the caprice of their fellow-men for 
the means of subsistence, so that men have to go around 
begging as a charity for the opportunity to earn a living. 
It will substitute manly independence and interdependence 
for servile subjection. Is that Christian? Horace 
Greeley said, in 1845, " Wherever certain human beings 
divide their time and thoughts mainly to obeying and 
serving other human beings, and this not because they 
choose to do so but because they must, there is slavery." 
The Christian aspect of that is : " Call no man ' Master.' " 

Socialism proposes to do away with involuntary 
poverty and unemployment. Poverty is a distinct social 
disease; it has a distinctly economic cause; that cause is 



RELIGIOUS ASPECTS OF SOCIALISM 297 

monopoly and legal privilege. The time is past when we 
can dismiss the problem of poverty by saying " It is 
because they drink; it is because they are improvident; 
it is because they are not thrifty; it is because they are 
lazy; it is because they are worthless." The bread line 
must go. The Christian aspect of that is : " Give us this 
day our daily bread " — that we may be sure of it. 

It will abolish the struggle for life, and make possible 
the joy of living. Struggle, in co-operation with broth- 
ers, for the conquest of nature, for the common benefit of 
all, will take the place of the struggle of each against the 
others to get hold of their earnings. 

It means the abolition of classes. Of course certain 
classes will remain, the good-looking and the bad-looking, 
for instance — 1 though there will be far less bad-looking 
people when they will all be clean and wear good clothes 
and be happy. There is the idle class that has got to go, 
the idle rich and the idle poor; there is the class that 
works for profit and the class that works for wages. 
There is only one class that will remain, and that is the 
class to which we shall all belong, the class that work for 
the service of their fellows. We have a few of them now, 
the doctors and the ministers and the teachers, theoreti- 
cally and ideally, are not working for profit ; they are not 
even working for wages; they are working for service, 
and their livelihood comes in as a by-product, as it 
should. The Christian aspect of that is : "I came not to 
be ministered unto, but to minister." 

Lastly, Socialism will do azvay with all forms of 
violence. It will do away with war, war being caused 
by the race for foreign markets for the sake of profit. It 
will do away with riot at home, which is the result of 
the battle between the exploiters and the exploited. The 
bullet and the bayonet, the " Black Hussars," and the 
clubs that are " mightier than the Constitution " are 



298 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

necessary bulwarks of an unbrotherly social order that is 
based on the principle of cutthroat competition and legal 
privilege. The weapons of Socialism, on the other hand, 
are persuasion and education, and the ballot, and the 
reliance on the instinctive response in the human heart 
to justice and fair play. The Christian aspect of that is: 
" Love your enemies." " Put up thy sword into its 
place." 

Socialism means, in general, that the individual welfare 
and advantage shall be a social matter as well as an 
individual matter ; that it shall not be "each man for him- 
self and the devil take the hindmost." It will be each man 
for himself with society helping him in every possible 
way. 

Now, these things are all distinctly and obviously and 
fundamentally religious. 

Another closely Christian aspect of Socialism is its 
optimism. Christianity is nothing if not optimistic; it 
looks with confidence to a new heaven and a new earth, to 
a new order of society wherein dwelleth righteousness. 
So Socialism knows that all human evils are remediable, 
that they are the effects of causes ; that if we remove the 
causes the effects will disappear. The solution for the 
woes of mankind in both Christianity and Socialism is 
brotherhood instead of selfish competition. 

Socialism believes in the divine possibilities of human 
character, that man in essence is brotherly and not brutal ; 
that this is a good world ; that only human ignorance and 
human oppression are responsible for all the evils that 
afflict us. 

Now, there are some things, of course, that Socialism 
does not undertake to do. It does not undertake to 
change human nature; and that for two reasons, — first, 
it can accomplish its ends with human nature as it is. 
Human nature is plastic and responsive to environment. 



RELIGIOUS ASPECTS OF SOCIALISM 299 

It is good and brotherly when that side is brought out ; it 
is bad and predatory when that side is cultivated. It is for 
that reason that Socialism does not attack individuals, 
no matter how undesirable they may be. Its efforts are 
solely directed against the competitive system which brings 
out the worst traits of individuals instead of the best. 

And the second reason why Socialism does not under- 
take to change human nature is because it does not want, 
neither has it time, to compete with the church in this her 
peculiar mission. It leaves the transformation of human 
character to the clergy, who are specialists in that line. 
All that it asks is that the clergy will get busy. 

Enough has been said to show, I think, that Socialism 
is not opposed to religion. The only kind of religion that 
Socialism deprecates is the un-Christian hireling kind that 
apologizes for the evils and oppressions of the present 
order and goes out of its way to antagonize Socialism by 
misrepresenting it. Not only does Socialism not attack 
religion but, on the contrary, it is itself religious to the 
core, — that is, if Judaism with its Messianic ideal is 
religious, and if Christianity wth its kingdom of God is 
religious. 

This is an enormous program, it may be said ; but it is 
not so complicated as it seems, for these things are not 
separate and distinct evils; they are all interrelated, the 
conditions which produce one, produce all. Socialism is 
a science; it takes a scientific survey of the social 
organism ; it proposes to deal scientifically with the 
causes, not at haphazard with the separate symptoms. 

How is all this going to be done ? Well, that is another 
story. We are discussing only the religious aspects of 
Socialism. Suffice it to say that if these things are 
religious they can be done and they will be done because 
God is, and He is pledged to these very things. 

But, as a matter of fact these things are already being 



300 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

done in part. We are already living socialistically to a 
degree. Socialism is not a brand-new something, strange 
and different and untried, that is to be substituted for the 
present order; it is already in and of the present order. 
The only question is: Shall we go on and be more 
thoroughgoing in our Socialism? For Socialism es- 
sentially is nothing more than perfected, thoroughgoing 
Democracy. Now, surely no American will deny that the 
United States is to a certain extent democratic already, 
that to a certain extent the people have a voice in their 
own affairs ; that to a certain extent the general welfare 
is the ostensible end of federal, state, and municipal 
government. We run schools, fire departments, life-sav- 
ing service, and so on, in democratic, socialistic fashion. 
No corporations or private individuals are exploiting 
these institutions for private profit. We would like to 
run the post-office in that same way, but there are 
three reasons why we cannot; the first reason is the 
American Express Company, and the second the United 
States Express Company, and the third is the Wells- 
Fargo Express Company. 

Now, shall we go on to gas, and to electricity, to 
transportation of passengers and freight, to mining, to 
manufacturing, — in a word, shall public utilities be 
publicly owned and publicly managed for the profit of all 
the people, or privately owned for exploitation of the 
people, for the amassing of private fortunes? Is this 
prospect so frightful for the ordinary American? 

What difficulties and misunderstandings vanish when 
we remember this one equation: Socialism equals 
Democracy. Of course it is not democracy in the ordi- 
nary sense of the term that is meant, as when the boy 
said, " Papa, what is a Democrat ? " and the father said 
" A Democrat, sonny, is a man that loves whisky and 
hates niggers, and some of them kin read." That is not 



RELIGIOUS ASPECTS OF SOCIALISM 301 

the kind of democracy we are speaking of ; the democracy- 
meant is government " of the people, for the people, by the 
people " ; government by consent of the governed, re- 
vocable at pleasure. In a democracy the people own and 
control the government. The standard objection to gov- 
ernment ownership of public utilities, railroads and so on, 
is that it will infinitely multiply the possibilities of graft. 
Not if the people own the government that owns these 
utilities. Graft and political corruption have their root 
and being in the fact that corporations — private interests 
— own the government. People will own the govern- 
ment when they have the recall, the initiative, the referen- 
dum, when their public servants, from the Justice on the 
bench of the Supreme Court of the United States to the 
mayor of the humblest town, can be removed by the people 
whenever they so desire. 

I have been careful to speak only of Socialism but in 
closing I wish to refer briefly to Socialists. I cannot 
refrain from quoting the last words penned by the trem- 
bling hand of a dying Socialist a short time since : — 

" I would that my every heart-beat should have been for the working 
class, and through them for all mankind." 

Has this any of the spirit of the One who said: 
" I am among you as one that serveth, that worketh, 
that toileth ; " who said : " I give my life a ransom for 
many " ? 

Listen also to the prayer of a Socialist: 

" Do not let me rest complacent day or night ; but put coals under 
my feet and thorns in my pillow while there is a slave at the wheel, a 
babe in the dungeon or a prostitute on the street." 

Do you detect some slight flavor of Christianity in sucH 
a prayer? Is that a type of the kind of prayers that you 
pray? 



302 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

In conclusion, then, Socialism is nothing more and 
nothing less than consistent Democracy, and Democracy 
is the organization of the brotherhood of man for the 
joint, co-operative pursuit of life, liberty and happiness. 
Judge to what degree Jesus of Nazareth, if He were an 
American living to-day, would be a Socialist, — a non- 
predatory, co-operative individualist. 



XIX 
SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY 
By Charles Gray Shaw, Ph.D. 

Professor of Ethics and Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Butler 
Lecturer on Comparative Religion, New York University 

In discussing this question of science and theology it 
might have been better, perhaps, to have it dealt with by 
one who could speak directly concerning the work that 
is being done in science; that is, it might be treated by 
a physicist, a chemist or a biologist, who could speak with 
authority concerning the molecule, the atom, or the living 
cell. Or perhaps by a theologian who could say some- 
thing about questions of criticism, lower and higher, who 
could give points concerning the texts of our sacred 
writings or who could say something concerning the 
date, the authorship, or the authenticity of those sacred 
works. 

But, at the same time, it is possible to discuss science 
and religion from a more general and literary standpoint : 
so we shall meet, as it were, upon the same ground to 
discuss this problem from about the same point of view ; 
that is to say, we are reading the papers, we are going 
over the magazines, we are manifesting our interest in the 
great study of nature which we call " science," just 
as we have also a living and abiding interest in those 
facts of spiritual life which we generally include under 
the head of " religion." Thus it is for us to determine, 
not what are the facts of science, not what are the beliefs 
of religion, but what shall be our attitude towards 
scientific research, our attitude towards religious belief. 

3°3 



3o 4 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

I. I do not know whether it has occurred to you that 
people who represent the general public, who in another 
sense stand for the literary class, are not so willing to 
accept the testimony of science as is usually believed. I 
do not say that they try to put the stars out of the heavens 
or to pluck up the plants from the earth, but they are not 
willing to receive science as a form of culture. From 
some cursory readings I have noted down one or two 
opinions that have been expressed by some of our modern 
writers, and it will appear as I mention their names and 
go over their works that I am not referring to those who 
represent the pulpit or theology, who perhaps might be 
accused of narrow-mindedness, but men who are liberal, 
and who in a certain sense are all too liberal. Take, 
for example, these statements that are repeated in one 
way or another in the writings of the late Friedrich 
Nietzsche, and one who is at all familiar with the writ- 
ings and knows anything about the spirit of Nietzsche will 
know that instead of a conservative man we have one 
who is most radical, and that instead of having one who 
represents the Christian faith we have one who is none 
other than an anarchist and an atheist, and yet in these 
rather few words he pays his respects to science : 

"To say that much work is accomplished at present in science — is far 
from proving that science, as a whole, has a goal, a will, an ideal, a 
passion of a great faith. The reverse is true. Where science is not the 
latest manifestation of the ascetic ideal, it is a subterfuge for every kind 
of discontent, unbelief, mental gnaw-worm, and bad conscience. They 
have acted in concert — the poor in spirit and the scientists, so I have 
called them the hectics of the Spirit." 

It is in this way that Nietzsche would cast a certain 
disapproving glance in the direction of science, inasmuch 
as it tends to belittle man, doing away with his intellect- 
ual dignity. I have now a quotation from one of the 
writings of Maxim Gorky: 



SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY 305 

" Science is a divine beverage, but up to the present time it has not 
got through fermenting, and is unfit for use, like vodka which has not 
been clarified from fusil oil. Science is not yet ready for man's happi- 
ness, and all that living people who use it get out of it is headaches." 

And then according to the writings of James Huneker 
we find a sentiment like this, in one of the novels of 
Anatole France : 

" The young men of this age are sick from the lying assurances of 
science." 

So I say that from the purely literary standpoint it 
does not follow that science means anything for the 
spiritual culture of mankind; it does not follow that we 
are to accept science simply because what it says about 
the heavens above and the earth beneath happens to be 
true in point of fact. 

And yet, why should we talk so much about the con- 
flict between science and religion ? If, as happened in the 
year 1859, a man with a tremendous intellect and a pure 
spirit revealed unto us some of the possibilities of plant 
and animal life, why was it that people regarded him with 
suspicion? — Why was it that the church should have 
looked askance upon the work of Charles Darwin? Or, 
going back to an earlier period, when a pious and logical 
mind revealed unto man the possibilities of the life above 
and announced it as his belief, — a very consistent belief, 
too, — that instead of our having a very simple and as 
it were rather home-made universe, with the earth as its 
sun, we had another universe whose sun center was the 
sun, — why was it that Galileo should have been perse- 
cuted for those simple and consistent remarks that he 
made? 

There is, there has been, conflict between science and 
religion, and when a man reveals unto us the wealth in the 
starry world above or the wealth of plant and animal life 



306 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

below, we say he is a bad man ; but when he pours out his 
money to the extent of millions of dollars we are so 
peculiar and so perverse in our views that we say he is 
a good man, when as a matter of fact the church suffers 
a great deal more from the conflict between religion and 
finance than it does from the conflict between religion 
and science. We do not bow before the Unknown God 
of the Greeks, but before the Golden Calf of the Hebrews. 

Now, what has been the history of science in modern 
times? I have already indicated that in referring to 
the astronomical work of Galileo; it seems that we have 
not only a new heaven but a new earth, and after the 
work of astronomy was done it became possible for men 
to go on and develop for us a new physics, as in the case 
of Isaac Newton. Then, coming still nearer the heart 
of matter, it became possible for men to analyze the 
various forms of materiality and give us a new chemistry, 
as was done in the eighteenth century by Joseph Priestly. 
And finally, when that great period of the nineteenth 
century dawned upon the modern mind, it became possible 
still more clearly to get into the secret of things, so that 
as science had gone from astronomy, then to physics and 
then to chemistry, it completed its work by the study of 
biology and the discovery of the living cell. 

I ask you to notice, in contrast to this, the development 
that our Protestant religion has undergone. I speak of 
our Protestant religion is the narrower sense of evangel- 
ical theology, inasmuch as it is that kind of theology that 
has been the life of our Protestant Church. After the 
Reformation was a completed fact, we find that our 
theology was developed in England and Scotland in a 
sincere, although in a rather dogmatic, fashion. Then 
there arose the great deistic controversy, which lasted for 
about one century, and although the church has many 
things to regret from its attitude towards those persecuted 



SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY 307 

deists, and although I think likewise the people sympathiz- 
ing with the deists have still other things to regret, the 
fact remains that there were developed certain great 
minds like Samuel Clarke's and Bishop Joseph Butler's. 

After the passing of deism, we notice that our Protes- 
tant theology, takes on a new character, a new guise, that 
is, the evangelical theology that we have in America to- 
day. I say nothing of Germany ; she was not touched by 
the deistic movement, except perhaps in the case of a 
Lessing or a Reimarus. It has had a profound theology 
in the nineteenth century, first under the leadership of 
Hegel and at a later period under the influence of the 
writings of Immanuel Kant. But in our country, where 
philosophy is not so much a matter of belief, we have, as I 
say, developed an evangelical theology. Now, while 
science has been finding itself, while science has slowly 
been intrenching itself in our lower schools and in our 
higher universities, it seems to me that theology has been 
growing weaker and weaker upon the intellectual side, 
so that if we survey the history of the evangelical theology 
of the last century we shall find, alas, that it does not give 
us a single great mind, it does not give us a single great 
thought; it has all the weakness of medievalism without 
its strength. It has that low and terrestrial conception 
of religion, as though a great bell- jar were raised over 
this human earth and as if the Cross of Christ were noth- 
ing more than a short ladder reaching between heaven 
and earth. In medieval times, without our astronomy, 
without our science in general, these things might perhaps 
be understood and explained, but it seems incredible that 
we should have had these low and superficial minds in our 
modern times in connection with our view of the world. 

Suppose that we had to-day medieval thinkers, like 
Augustine and Aquinas; suppose they were upon the 
scene, with all the fervor of their religious belief, with all 



3 o8 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

the peculiarities of their monkish medieval minds — can 
we suppose that they would subscribe to that narrow and 
half-hearted theology that has grown up and developed in 
connection with the evangelical church? It is to be 
regretted that while science has become stronger and more 
consistent, religion, on the other hand, so far as its 
intellectual life is concerned, has become weaker and less 
consistent, so that the battle between religion and science 
is by no means an even one to-day, and it is no wonder, 
therefore, that the scientist has little respect for the church, 
no wonder that the church has or has had a great deal of 
fear from the strongholds of science. 

2. But let us look at the question itself, apart from the 
peculiar condition in which we find our American theology 
to-day. What is science? What is religion? Without 
attempting anything in the way of a formal definition, we 
may say that science can be identified as that which has to 
do with the perceptible or sensuous order of things ; that 
is to say, science deals with those forms of phenomena that 
we usually identify with the senses, with the eye, with the 
ear, with the hand. It is not true that in every case sci- 
ence wants to see, to handle, to hear, but at any rate the 
sensuous or the perceptible is the scientific ideal, and, 
being unwilling to trust his intellect alone, you will find 
that the scientist must have some fond instrument of the 
telescopic sort in order that with eyes of flesh he may 
actually see the star, in order that he shall be able to 
corroborate the calculations of his own mind. And, work- 
ing in the other direction, he must have a microscope 
which shall show him what actually exists within various 
substances or what goes on within the forms of animal 
life; and while I know that there are many subjects of 
science which cannot be seen with the glass, much less 
with the naked eye, nevertheless it is always the aim of 
the scientist to treat the thing as though it were visible, 



SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY 309 

as though it were tangible ; in other words, that it becomes 
necessary for him to give some exact form or graphic 
representation to the subject which he is treating. 

Now, religion does not have to do with the perceptible 
order at all. We worship the unseen ; so it would appear 
as though there could be no direct controversy between 
science and religion, because science has its own field, the 
field of time and space, the field which is filled out by the 
perceptible order of things; while religion dwells within 
the realm of the invisible, in the realm of the spiritual. 
But take the attitude of the scientist towards this world 
which he sees with his eyes and handles with his hands; 
the scientist accepts the universe, having no criticism to 
pass upon it. All he has to do is to discover the facts and 
to place them in their proper relations according to what 
he calls natural laws. But the religionist, or the man of 
faith, whether he be a member of the Christian church 
or a believer in the Christian religion, whether he come 
from some other land like that of Buddhism and Vedanta, 
finds it necessary to re-act upon the universe, which is a 
system he cannot for a moment accept. So you will notice 
that in a great religious system like Vedanta the world is 
rejected, being cast aside as though it were unreal, while 
in connection with Christianity, although the world is not 
repudiated in this peculiar metaphysical sense, it is negated 
in another way, which we might call the moralistic one. 
So Jesus Christ, looking out upon the universe, although 
as a Jew he had been taught to believe that that universe 
was the world of God, His Father, says to His disciples, 
" What does it profit you if you gain the whole visible 
order and lose your own individual soul ? " And while 
we would not try to build up any sort of theology, 
especially a destructive theology, upon those isolated 
phrases or texts which may be taken from Vedanta and 
Christianity, we still think we can lay it down as a general 



310 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

rule that the religionist, even in the lowest order, where 

men worship an idol or fetish like the religionist, upon 
the highest order of Brahmanism and Christianity, is one 
who thinks it necessary to reject the world, or, if not to 
reject the world altogether, to subject it to a very critical 
form of analysis, a mental attitude, and a form of mental 
conduct altogether different from the scientist who 
accepts the universe, taking it exactly as it is. 

Having observed the speculative distinction between 
these two realms, let us turn to the practical. What has 
science done for mankind? Do we get anything more 
out of it than a headache, as Gorky said, following out 
that analogy of the Russian who drinks too much of the 
vodka, with its excess of fusil oil ? But science has done 
a great deal for us, and every one who follows these words, 
whether he believes in science or not, is one who has been 
benefited by it. Hence the only question is, Wherein 
have we been benefited, and to wdiat extent have our 
desires been met by the culture of the phenomenal world ? 

Take it in the case of medicine ; we can say that 
science has helped us a great deal here, because by the 
study of physiology, and by means of a physiological 
chemistry, it has done wonders in the alleviation of human 
suffering, in the prevention of disease, in the general 
lightening of our misery, making this finite life of ours 
more or less tolerable. I think we shall all admit that 
science has done for us something of great good, the only 
question being wherein that good actually consists. 

One might draw a circle around all the benefits of 
science and say they are to be included under the general 
head of " Utility," — science has done something of a 
beneficial nature. But that is not sufficient for the spirit 
of man ; he has greater needs than the needs of the flesh ; 
he has a hunger and a thirst which cannot be satisfied by 
any ordinary form of food or drink and he has a disease, 



SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY 311 

a spiritual disease, a certain sickness, a homesickness for 
spiritual life which science cannot in any wise deny. 
Now, if one says, " That is sentiment," that may very 
well be, but it is upon the basis of that very sentiment that 
mankind has been nurtured and educated from the begin- 
ning of all time. Man has these deep spiritual needs 
which science cannot in any wise satisfy. 

And so when we come here and say that science points 
out to us a great truth, we observe at the same time it is 
not the kind of spiritual truth in which we would fain be- 
lieve; and when we say, as we must, that science has in 
a certain sense been our good angel in modern times, we 
have to observe that there are other good angels and bet- 
ter ones whose aid we need ; so that while science is true, 
while science is of value, there are other truths, there are 
other values, and these must be established, these must be 
furnished by some other form of human culture, and re- 
ligion seems to be the one which is best adapted for ful- 
filling that particular service. 

3. Now, with this general distinction between religion 
and science, according to which science deals with the 
immediate order, and the immediate need, while religion 
has to do with a remote and invisible order, a remote and 
scarcely appreciated need, we ask ourselves, " How is it 
that there should have been any conflict between the 
two ? " It seems to have been due to the fact that the 
religionist has not been able to consider spiritual life with- 
out running into a peculiar form of supernaturalism. 

In the case of Christianity, we observe that in connec- 
tion with our sacred writings, we have the outpourings of 
the Semitic mind. And we know that the Semitic mind, 
with all its excellences, with all its possibilities, has de- 
veloped almost wholly the practical side of our human ex- 
istence. The Hebrews were the great people for conduct, 
so that when we want to get any ideals of human life, 



312 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

when we want to get hold of any principles of human law, 
we are apt to turn to the writings of Moses or to the 
words of Jesus Christ. The intellectual side of things was 
developed by another people, namely, the Aryans, from 
whom we have inherited our ideals of logic, science, art 
and philosophy. So we may regard the Hebrew Bible as 
that which contributes to the practical or the pragmatic 
side of human life, — important, of course, — indeed 
absolutely indispensable ; while we must admit that, on the 
other hand, the Indo-Germanic peoples have given us their 
ideals of physics and dialectics. 

Notice another thing, that when the miracles were being 
recorded in the Old Testament here and there in connec- 
tion with the lives of the Prophets, and then in the New 
Testament in connection with the life and the career of 
Jesus Christ, they were times in which men had no 
scientific ideals. Science is a modern thing which we 
cannot date back even as far as the Middle Ages ; so that 
not only with the Jews and those who had come under 
the sway of Judaism, but also with Greeks, with pagans 
in general, the scientific ideals had not been developed. 
So this peculiar scientific warning that we be on our guard, 
that we be very careful to get the facts exactly as they 
are, that, further, we put them in their proper relation, — 
all these were scruples which could have no place in the 
minds of those men who wrote the life of Christ. The 
writers of the New Testament did not have the scientific 
standard, and so if they did not put things in a way that 
we would like to see them put to-day, we are to see that 
it is not altogether their fault, but that it is our fate, 
because these brains of ours are so limited and the life of 
man is so short that not everything can be learned at once ; 
so that in the gradual development of things one must first 
have one's religious principles cultivated and then, later, 
one's scientific ones. While these religious people held 



SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY 313 

the field they felt perfectly free to say things just about as 
they occurred to them ; and so we have a great many very 
general statements of things which were said to have been 
done by one Jesus of Nazareth in the course of his 
religious career while he was carrying on a great religious 
work. 

If Matthew, Mark, Luke and John had had the modern 
scientific education I can believe that they would have told 
those very same things in a somewhat different fashion. 
They would have been on their guard against looseness of 
statement, against attributing causes where causes were 
not to be found ; they would have used the language in a 
manner far more critical. But unfortunately — or fortu- 
nately — the men did not have the scientific education to 
which we have referred, and so under the influence of an 
exalted personality, being persuaded that He had come 
forth from God, they said certain extraordinary things 
about His power, so that it seems as though He could 
with a word have fed five thousand with enough food for 
only half a dozen, and by the mere touch at the hem of 
His garment one might be made whole, or by a mere word 
He could turn water into wine. If they erred it was not 
in the spirit, but in the letter. 

Those who do not believe in miracles will say that the 
great trouble with the miracle is this : that it never takes 
place. But let us make this qualification, as I have al- 
ready given it: we have here the work of the Semitic 
mind, and the Semitic mind at this time was not scientific ; 
we have here a book that was written in an age which was 
not an age of science, so that it cannot, in the exigencies 
of the case, be at all exact, and if one feels that we must 
give up these miracles in the supernatural way that they 
are recorded, it may be possible for us to see that there is 
in them certain religious truth, and that is the truth of a 
spiritual life which is over all things, shedding its light 



314 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

upon them in the same manner that the sun shines upon 
the earth; and while we may not be able to see just how 
spiritual life in the general sense of the term is able to 
work wonders we can still hold fast to the general truth 
of miracles, which is the truth of this indwelling and all- 
pervading spiritual life. 

If this does not satisfy us altogether, I would still call 
attention to another fact, in connection with this matter of 
science and religion in the realm of the miracle, that a 
great many theologians and those of a conservative and 
orthodox nature are not at all convinced of the value of 
the miracle, even where they may believe in its truth, 
because our faith is a faith which is not supported by any- 
thing of such an extraordinary nature ; it is a faith which 
has grounds and reasons of its own; and while a miracle 
may have been a convincing sign to a man who beheld the 
transaction, I do not see how it could convince us to-day, 
so many thousand miles and so many thousand years away 
from the scene and the time where the thing is supposed 
to have taken place. 

So let us admit that here science has taught us a great 
lesson. It has taught us to be honest intellectually. It 
has cleansed the mind of all sorts of intellectual strictures ; 
it has shown us how to get at the facts in the case and how 
to put them in the proper relation, and although the lesson 
has been a severe one, — and we have shrunk from this 
acid test which has been applied to the metal of our 
religion, — while we have twinged under the knife and 
scissors of the surgeon, we feel that in a certain sense 
we are whole ; and to those of us who are still languishing 
upon the bed with a half-hearted and halfway belief, I 
say : " Arise, for your light is come," and that light, so far 
as its rays penetrate the heart of man, is the light of 
science, as it is also the light of spiritual life. 

The human mind needs the teaching of science because 



SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY 315 

the mind has a peculiar habit; it is a mind which, ap- 
parently, is wholly given up to the truth; but the truth, 
like a great many other things, is not always to be had for 
the asking, and where the mind of man cannot discover 
the truth in any particular instance, such as the cause of 
something which has taken place, or a fact which is desired 
at a particular time, it is persuaded by a peculiar ten- 
dency to invent these, inasmuch as it cannot supply its 
demand in any other way. 

Now, we say " Thank Heaven that we live in the 
twentieth century, because we have broken away from the 
mysteries of the Orientals and the superstitions of 
medieval peoples. We are free; we are modern; we are 
rejoicing in the light of the intellect." And yet I will 
venture to say that every one has in his mind a rich array 
of superstitions, of illusions, of untrue beliefs, of which he 
is not at all ready to be cleansed, clinging to them with a 
tenacity which it is difficult for him himself to under- 
stand. We love the truth, and at the same time we love 
things that are not so true. We hold fast to tradition ; we 
hold fast to custom. We believe things that have been 
taught us, things that we have heard, things that we have 
imagined, and even though we are absolutely convinced 
that they are false, we still hold fast to them simply 
because we do. 

I suppose the psychologist would try to explain this by 
saying that the life of man, the life of his intellect, just 
as well as the life of his body, is guided by the will rather 
than by the understanding. And while there is in us a 
very valuable faculty that we call the " will-to-believe," 
at the same time that faculty can become so perverse that 
it will be " the-will-to-make-believe. ,, As moderns we suf- 
fer from this in the same way that men suffered from it 
in medieval and in ancient times, although in a different 
degree, and with a brighter prospect of having the astig- 



316 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

matism corrected because we understand its cause much 
better. So do not let us be unfriendly towards science 
or suspicious of its purpose — the scientist has a great 
many of these illusions himself, — but let us welcome 
anything that will put our mind in the proper attitude, 
that will correct our vision, that will give us a clear 
outlook upon the world. Now and then we have to 
dispense with some things which have been fond and 
favored ideals to us in the past. Let them go, because 
there are a great many others just as acceptable to 
take their places. Why, the Apostle Paul knew that 
he had them. He said : " When I was a child I thought, 
I spake, I understood as a child. I am a man now, 
and I have to put away childish things." And yet 
we know that with people in general, their minds are 
possessed of the most childish ideas concerning God, the 
world and the soul. They learned these in the Sunday- 
school, which is the place to learn them, and while they 
have grown in other ways, professionally, socially, in the 
business world, they have not grown on the theological 
side, so that they have the same naive and immature view 
of things. We find this adolescent theology in Napoleon 
and Gladstone. 

4. On the speculative side, where the problem was one 
of knowledge, traditional theology has had much to learn 
from science. But on the practical side, where general 
faith is found, science has submitted to religion. Science 
has made an appeal to the eye and the mind, but not to 
the heart and the will ; as a result, it has left the ethical 
situation undisturbed. Its conservatism is so marked that 
one is almost tempted to smile at its general intellectual 
pretensions just as one can understand the impatience of 
Nietzsche, Gorky, and Anatole France, who long for a 
new social situation. The great thinkers, the " dangerous 
thinkers," in science are strangely docile in ethical mat- 



SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY 317 

ters, and verily the lions are found eating straw like the 
ox. Helmholtz, Darwin, Haeckel, Tyndall, Huxley, and 
Draper have looked boldly upon the world, but have not 
cast such intrepid glances within their own souls. Their 
rationale was revolutionary; their morale had nothing 
original about it. In contrast to them we find that our 
modern poets have been more radical so that they, not 
the physicists, are the men who will bear watching. 
Turgenev in Russia, Strindberg in Sweden, Ibsen in 
Norway, Sudermann in Germany, Anatole France in 
Paris, Bernard Shaw in England, — these are the men 
who threaten us with moral nihilism, while they show 
that the real, spiritual conflict is not between religion and 
science, but between religion and aesthetics. 

Science is now resting from its labors and our century 
presents the battle-ground of a new and more important 
conflict, that of ethical ideals and social standards. Like 
religion, science has been willing to bear the yoke of duty 
and to tread in the path of benevolence, so that in an age 
which now repudiates obligation and asserts egoism, sci- 
ence seems quite old-fashioned. We have nothing to fear 
from the man with the microscope, for it is the emanci- 
pated artist who has " arrived " and we must look to our 
ideals. At the same time, the twentieth century must 
show its readiness to advance on the ethical side as did 
the nineteenth century on the scientific one. We have a 
work to do and in our new field we may hope for little 
from physical science. 

Now, this truth, which I think cannot be denied, is a 
truth which will count in either one direction or the 
other, if it should turn out, as I think it will upon mature 
examination, that science is morally conservative, has 
done nothing for the emancipation of mankind beyond 
the ethical side, that proves that science is not as strong 
as it imagines itself to be ; or it proves that the Bible has 



318 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

triumphed because the Bible is an ethical work, and it 
stakes its reputation upon the moral, upon the ideal of a 
righteousness ; and while science seems to have won the 
first victory, the preliminary charge and the early skir- 
mish, nevertheless religion has triumphed inasmuch as it 
has impressed upon the mind of the scientist himself the 
old moral ideal which it has laid down here. 

5. In summing up the results of our discussion we 
see how different have been the careers of science and 
religion, how different are their respective fields. The 
conflict that arose was due to a heedless supernaturalism 
which invaded nature without noticing the tendency on 
the part of the mind to delude itself. But science has 
been found to hesitate when contrasted with ethics and 
ethical problems. From all of this, certain general con- 
clusions may be elaborated. They may be expressed as 
certain persistent beliefs. 

The first is that truth is divine, and we can find this 
idea in Plato or St. John, in Augustine or Hegel. Science 
can never take away from it, nor can religion add to it. 
In its beauty it is self-existent. 

My second belief is that humanity is one, and so thor- 
oughly one that we shall not say "lama scientist " or 
" I am a religionist." For the scientist has a soul, while 
the religionist lives in the world, and where one must ful- 
fill the demands of his spiritual vocation, the other must 
look into the affairs of nature to see what bearing they 
have upon his life. One cannot divide humanity, inas- 
much as all men have the same needs and are confronted 
by the same facts. 

With the unity of the spiritual order and the oneness of 
mankind before us, we may now observe the great mys- 
tery brooding over us all. No wonder that men believe 
religiously, no wonder that they doubt scientifically. The 
totality of the world overshadows us so thoroughly that 



SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY 319 

we can only give humble assent to the presence of some- 
thing greater than ourselves. 

Finally, humanity has a fundamental need so that heart 
and flesh cry out for the living God. And as science can 
never dismiss the great mystery, so it can never satisfy 
this desire. Hence, while we welcome science, as we 
have long since welcomed religion, we say with Emerson : 

" What is the universal sense of want and ignorance 
but the fine innuendo by which the soul makes its enor- 
mous claim." 



XX 

THE SYMPHONY OF RELIGIONS 
By Alfred W. Martin, A.M., S.T.B. (Harv.) 

Associate Leader of the New York Society for Ethical Culture 

Four great discoveries of the modern world have com- 
pelled the reconstruction of many an old-time belief. 

First in the order of time was the discovery of Coper- 
nicus, in 1543, which shattered the " crystal spheres " of 
Ptolemy and instituted what is known as the heliocentric 
theory of the universe, entirely disposing of the old-time 
notion that the world is a three-story structure and that 
the earth is the center of the solar system. The immediate 
effect of that discovery was to change, in certain impor- 
tant particulars, the idea of God as it had been entertained 
in earlier centuries. And we all recall how, in his well- 
known monograph, 1 the late John Fiske has elucidated 
this important result of the discovery of Copernicus. 

Next in the order of time came the discovery of the 
Sacred Books of the East, which directly affected certain 
ideas that had been entertained about the Bible, and also 
about the particular place that Christianity holds among 
the world's great religions. 

Then, in 1841, Sir Charles Lyell went to Niagara 
Falls and there made his world-renowned discovery which 
immediately affected our conception of the antiquity of 
the earth and, more especially, the story of creation as 
it is recorded in the book of Genesis. 

And then, in 1859, Charles Darwin published his mem- 

1 " The Idea of God," sequel to " The Destiny of Man." 
320 



THE SYMPHONY OF RELIGIONS 321 

orable discovery about the origin and nature of man, 
which, as you will admit, has had a very direct effect 
upon certain religious beliefs that are closely identified 
with it. 

But our concern is with the second of these four great 
discoveries. When the sacred scriptures of Arabia, 
Persia, India and China were discovered, there began to 
be a very decided change in the attitude of Christian and 
non-Christian faiths toward each other ; a mighty increase 
in tolerance, in charity, in forbearance, in sympathetic 
appreciation occurred and it has continued from that time 
on. It was, indeed, as though some long-lost musical 
score had been suddenly discovered, which score, when 
played by the orchestra of reverent and searching scholar- 
ship, proved to be a veritable " symphony of religions," 
lifting the whole world-audience into the joyous and 
serene atmosphere of a great spiritual fellowship. 

In 711, when the Moors crossed over from northern 
Africa into Spain, they brought with them a certain book 
which the Spaniards said was called " The Word of 
God," and for which these Moslems made the most as- 
tounding claim, namely, that if every single copy of this 
Book were to be destroyed it would make no difference 
because there is an everlasting Copy of it by the throne of 
the Most High " Allah," and it can be reproduced at 
any time ! This " word of God," as it was called, proved 
to be the Koran, or the sacred book of the Mohammedans. 

About the middle of the fourteenth century certain 
travelers from central Europe found their way into a rich 
and thickly populated country in the far East which they 
called Cathay. Returning to central Europe, — they had 
meanwhile learned to pronounce the name of this country 
" China," — they reported upon the remarkable dis- 
coveries which they had made there, more especially in 
the literature of this people. They told of the remarkable 



Z22 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

books they had there discovered, books that were rich in 
ethical content, and which on closer observation it was 
found were none other than the sacred books of the Con- 
fucians, some of which had been edited by Confucius, 
while others were the work of his own hand. These 
books, just like the Koran, were subsequently translated 
into many of the languages of Europe. 

In 1754 Anquetil du Perron, browsing in the royal 
library of Paris, suddenly came upon some rather dusty 
fragments of an old manuscript written in a dialect of 
the Sanskrit, and these proved to be a portion of the 
" Avesta," or sacred book of the Zoroastrians. Wishing 
to know more of this literature and of these people, he 
went to Bombay, for in Bombay, for over a thousand 
years, there had existed a colony of these Zoroastrians. 
Anquetil spent three years among these people, learning 
their language, and while in the process of learning it he 
came upon one hundred and eighty-two manuscripts simi- 
lar to the one that he had discovered in the Paris library. 
Those 182 manuscripts, plus the discovery made in Paris, 
constitute all that we have to-day of the sacred books of 
the Parsees or Zoroastrians. 

Then in 1787, when the British took possession of 
India, that great commercial enterprise led to the dis- 
covery of the oldest part of what is probably the oldest 
bible in the world, the " Rig- Veda," consisting of some 
1020 hymns in praise of the forces of Nature, personi- 
fied as deities. Add to that " Rig- Veda " the other three 
Vedas that were subsequently discovered, and to these, 
the " Aranyakas," or Forest Meditations ; — to these, 
again, the " Upanishads " and the two great epics of the 
" Mahabbarata " and the " Ramayana," and you have a 
grand total of sacred Hindu literature that is over four 
times the size of the Christian sacred literature, the " Holy 
Bible." 



THE SYMPHONY OF RELIGIONS 323 

A little later on other Indian sacred books were dis- 
covered, which proved to be the sacred literature of the 
Buddhists, namely, the " Pitakas," and these being re- 
garded as sacred their very letters, as having a sanctity of 
their own attached to them, were counted, just as the let- 
ters of the New Testament were counted in the days when 
men thought that its letters were inspired. When we 
count the total letters in the Pitakas and the total letters 
in the New Testament we find that there are eight times 
as many in the Buddhist Bible as there are in the New 
Testament. 

Now, from these discoveries of the sacred literatures 
of the Orient two great effects have followed, — the first 
immediate and direct, the other indirect and remote. 
First, then, the direct and immediate effect was the cre- 
ation of a new science, which has been rather clumsily 
called " The Science of Comparative Religion," — some- 
times, again, " The Science of Comparative Theology," a 
science which proceeds by the regular, orderly method of 
observation, verification, classification, and which has re- 
sulted in producing a succession of most surprising and 
significant results. 

1. This science showed, in the first place, that all such 
moral sentiments as justice, temperance, truthfulness, 
patience, love, mercy, — far from being the peculiar prop- 
erty of any one religion, were found, inculcated in the 
Bibles of all religions. 

2. So, again, it was found that spiritual sentiments, 
such as awe, reverence, wonder, aspiration, worship, — 
these too, far from being peculiar to any one religion, 
found expression in all the various systems of faith. 

3. Moreover it was discovered, as a result of this 
science, that differences in climate, differences in environ- 
ment, differences in racial origin, produced various ex- 
pressions of one and the same spiritual sentiment; so 



324 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

that, for instance, whether it be the Papuan, or the Aztec, 
or the New Zealander, squatting in dumb meditation be- 
fore his feathered god or shapeless block ; or whether it be 
the Mohammedan, prostrate in front of his mosque; or 
whether it be the Christian, kneeling in petitional prayer 
to his Father in heaven ; or whether it be the cosmic theist, 
seeking to come into at-one-ment with the Infinite and 
Eternal whence all things did proceed, — it is one and 
the same expression of yearning and hungering for a 
purer, nobler, diviner life than they had thus far known. 

4. Then this science made the further discovery that 
the Ten Commandments of the Old Testament are more 
or less and in slightly varying forms to be found in these 
other sacred scriptures. Nay, more, — it was found that 
we ought to add four more to the ten that are in the Old 
Testament to make the collection completer, for it was 
seen that in the Mohammedan Bible there is a command- 
ment about cleanliness, and a commandment about kind- 
ness to animals, that ought to find a place in any group of 
commandments for the conduct of daily life. And then 
it was observed that in the Hindu Bible there is a com- 
mandment about intellectual honesty, — one of the cry- 
ing needs of our time, a virtue that is perhaps more in 
demand to-day, in the religious world, than any other. 
In the Confucian scriptures too the duty of utter white- 
mindedness, or religious sincerity was found commanded. 

In the Buddhist Bible, the fifth commandment reads: 
" Thou shalt drink no intoxicating liquor," and it was 
promptly felt by advocates of prohibition that this too 
ought to have a place in any complete compendium of 
moral commands. 

5. Again, it was found that tlje Golden Rule did not 
originate with Jesus, nor even with Confucius, but ante- 
dated even him by centuries. 

6. As a further result of this scince it was found that 



THE SYMPHONY OF RELIGIONS 325 

the old notion that a particular passage in the New Testa- 
ment could not be matched in one or another of the non- 
Christian Bibles was a mistake. When some bumptious 
individual at a great meeting in Boston declared that 
certain passages which he quoted, could not be paralleled 
anywhere else outside of the New Testament, Ralph 
Waldo Emerson who happened to be in the audience arose 
and with that sublime, serene, ethereal, dignified way that 
was always so characteristic of his utterances, said, " The 
gentleman's remark only proves how narrowly he has 
read." 

7. And then, again, it was found that the old classi- 
fication of religions, according to which Christianity is 
put by itself in one class as the one, true, divine religion, 
and all the other religions over there in another class, 
labeled " pagan," or " false," religions, — that old classi- 
fication had to be abandoned in the light of the revelations 
of this great science of comparative religion. 

8. Yet, once more, — it has been discovered that many 
a popular book on comparative religion has been made 
obsolete, or unreliable and unsatisfying by reason of the 
revelations of this science. 

And here I am reminded of that old fable of Aesop, 
with which all are doubtless familiar, the fable of the 
Forester and the Lion, who were one day walking through 
the woods and discussing the question " Which is the 
stronger, a lion or a man ? " They found it quite impos- 
sible to solve the problem till accidentally they came upon 
a piece of statuary representing a man in the act of throw- 
ing down a lion. " There," said the woodsman, " You 
see the man is the stronger." " Ah yes ! " said the lion, 
" but their positions would have been reversed if a lion 
had been the sculptor." 

We see the application of the fable, — too many prej- 
udiced Christians have been the sculptors of the non- 



326 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

Christian faiths. Perhaps as the best illustration of this 
we may take the most popular of all the books that have 
been written on the world's great religions ; I mean " The 
Ten Great Religions," by James Freeman Clarke, of 
sainted memory. I shrink somewhat from making any 
allusion to his popular work, for I remember that James 
Martineau, who was perhaps the greatest theologian of 
England in the nineteenth century, said to me, when I 
was visiting him at his summer home in Scotland, " James 
Freeman Clarke is the New Englander I venerate most 
since Channing." So it is with all due respect for the 
great name of James Freeman Clarke that I criticise his 
book, remembering that it was published many years ago, 
long before the mighty strides that the science of compara- 
tive religion has since then taken. The unique design 
on the cover of the book shows forth the prejudice and 
bias with which he approached the subject and which 
disqualifies him to sit as a juror when passing, judgment 
upon the worth of the world's great religions. Partiality, 
we know, is just as fatal to equity as is prejudice, and 
every disciple is partial to his master. 

Or, again, we might take those monographs that have 
been published by the British " Society for the Promotion 
of Christian Knowledge." Many of those volumes have 
to be put in the same class, because they show a very dis- 
tinct bias and prejudice on the part of the writer, which 
renders his work on the foreign religion distinctly unsatis- 
factory, marring what is otherwise an exellent serviceable 
book. 

Permit me briefly to illustrate some of the eight results 
of this science, especially those shown to us in comparing 
quotations from the sacred books of the East. Al- 
ready we have forty-nine volumes translated into Eng- 
lish constituting a body of first-hand oriental literary 
material that English-speaking students may use in their 



THE SYMPHONY OF RELIGIONS 327 

study of the world's great religions. I am sure all will 
appreciate what is meant by the " symphony of religions " 
when I select for an example the moral sentiment of 
catholicity, of appreciation, as it has found expression 
in the Bibles of the seven great religions of the world. 

First, in the Hindu Bible we read : " Altar flowers are 
of many species, but all worship is one. Systems of faith 
differ, but God is One. The object of all religions is 
alike; all seek the object of their love, and all the world 
is love's dwelling place." 

And here is the corresponding passage from the Bud- 
dhist bible : " The root of religion is to reverence one's 
own faith and never to revile the faith of others. My 
doctrine makes no distinction between high and low, rich 
and poor. It is like the sky ; it has room for all, and like 
water it washes all alike." 

And this noble sentence is the equivalent from the 
Zoroastrian bible : " Have the religions of mankind no 
common ground? Is there not everywhere the same 
enrapturing beauty? Broad indeed is the carpet which 
God has spread, and many are the colors which He has 
given it. Whatever road I take joins the highway that 
leads to Thee." 

And this is the corresponding sentiment from the 
Chinese bible : " Religions are many and different, but 
reason is one. Humanity is the heart of man, and justice 
is the path of man. The broad-minded see the truth 
in different religions; the narrow-minded see only the 
differences." 

And in the Jewish scriptures we read : " Wisdom 
in all ages entering into holy souls maketh them friends 
of God and Prophets. Behold how good and pleasant a 
thing it is for brethren to dwell together in unity." 

And finally, in the Christian scriptures we read : " Are 



328 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

we not all children of one Father? Hath not one God 
created us ? " 

Or, again, let us take a spiritual sentiment, and see 
how it has found expression in these various bibles. Take, 
for example, the religious sentiment of hope that man's 
life does not end with his earthly existence, that in some 
form there is an immortality awaiting every child of man. 
In the Hindu bible is the command : " Go, give to the 
plants and to the waters thy body which belongs to them ; 
but there is an immortal portion of thee, transport it to the 
world of the holy." 

And in the Zoroastrian : " At the last day questions 
will be asked only as to what you have done, not from 
whom you are descended. I fear not death ; I fear only 
not having lived well enough." 

And in the Buddhist : " The soul is myself ; the body 
is only my dwellingplace." 

And in the Chinese : " Man never dies. It is because 
men see only their bodies that they hate death." 

In the Mohammedan scripture we have this passage: 
" Mortals ask * What property has a man left behind 
him ? ' but angels ask ' What good deeds has he sent on 
before him?'" 

And in the Jewish scriptures we read : " The memorial 
of virtue is immortal. When it is present men take ex- 
ample of it, and when it is gone they desire it." 

In the Christian scriptures we have the familiar passage : 
" Though our outward man perish, yet is our inward man 
day by day renewed." 

We have here seven different expressions from the 
seven bibles of the seven great extant religions on the 
moral sentiment of catholicity and on the religious senti- 
ment of hope in immortality. 

But much more interesting to us, I am sure, will be the x 



THE SYMPHONY OF RELIGIONS 329 

seven different versions, from these same seven bibles, of 
the Golden Rule. 

The Hindu form is as follows : " The true rule is 
to guard and do by the things of others as they do by their 
own." 

The Buddhist : " One should seek for others the happi- 
ness one desires for oneself." 

The Zoroastrian : " Do as you would be done by." 

The Chinese : " What you do not wish done to your- 
self, do not unto others." 

The Mohammedan : " Let none of you treat your 
brother in a way he himself would dislike to be treated." 

The Jewish : " Whatever you do not wish your neigh- 
bor to do to you, do not unto him." 

And the Christian : " All things whatsoever ye would 
that men should do unto you, do ye even so to them." 

We see, then, it is only a difference of terminology, only 
a difference of form; the sentiment of the Golden Rule 
is one and the same throughout. 

If we listen to a Hindu chant, we shall think we have 
lighted upon some missing psalm of the Old Testament, 
so alike are they in spiritual content. Hear the Parsee, 
as he offers his prayer for purity, and how slight a change 
in the language of that prayer should we have to make 
in order that it should suit our spiritual need. We may 
not believe in " Nirvana " or in " reincarnation," but we 
all must walk " the noble, eight-fold path " of Gautama, 
the Buddha, if complete character is to be ours. Open 
the " Koran " of the Mohammedans, the " Analects " of 
the Confucians, the " Kings " of the Chinese, before Con- 
fucius, and in each case we shall find ourselves face to 
face with the credentials of a religion that speaks to us in 
accents strong, beautiful and sometimes even sublime. 

But we must pass now to the second of the great effects 
that followed from the discovery and translation of these 



330 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

great oriental sacred books. The second effect, follow- 
ing directly from this science of comparative religion and 
indirectly from the discovery and translation of the sacred 
books of the East. I refer to that mammoth convention, 
held in the City of Chicago in 1893, — the "World's 
Parliament of Religions." It is perfectly safe to say that 
we should still be waiting for such a parliament had not 
the science of Comparative Religion been already born 
and developed, had not those sacred books of the far East 
been discovered and translated. Here, in this great con- 
vention, was something bigger than the Ferris Wheel, 
brighter than the electrical display. Yes, even that splen- 
did panorama of architecture that greeted our eyes as we 
stood on the Court of Honor, — even that superb pan- 
orama paled before the procession of the world's great 
faiths. At the head of that procession walked a Sweden- 
borgian layman, Mr. Charles C. Bonney, arm in arm with 
scarlet-robed Cardinal Gibbons, the highest dignitary of 
the Roman Catholic church in the United States. And 
behind them walked Greek and Jew, Confucian and Chris- 
tian, Mohammedan and Parsee, Baptist missionary and 
Hindu monk, — one hundred and twenty-eight pairs, — 
all marching in one grand, triumphal procession of broth- 
erhood. W T ould that some painter had been present to 
put on canvas that memorable scene, symbolic as it was 
of the death-knell of sectarian exclusiveness, prophetic 
as it was of the coming peace among the conflicting faiths 
of mankind. That Parliament was conceived and planned 
by a Presbyterian minister in Chicago, Rev. J. Henry 
Barrows. The closing address was by a Swedenborgian, 
the final prayer by a Jewish Rabbi and the benedic- 
tion by a Roman Catholic Bishop. 

In that parliament there was only one discordant note, 
and we must deplore the fact that it should have come 
from a Christian source. The Rev. Joseph Cook, of 



THE SYMPHONY OF RELIGIONS 331 

" Boston Monday Lectureship " fame, took occasion to 
cast aspersion upon those who did not regard Jesus the 
Christ as the Savior of mankind. 

Of the one hundred and thirty-nine sects into which 
Christianity is divided, practically all the larger bodies 
were represented at the Congress with one single excep- 
tion — the Episcopalian. Officially they were not repre- 
sented, but many Episcopalian ministers took occasion on 
their own account to be present, among them Dr. Heber 
Newton of New York and Dr. Alfred Momerie of London. 

The American church followed the lead of the English 
church. In declining to participate, the Archbishop of 
Canterbury took the ground that he could not regard the 
non-Christian religions as on a level of equality with Chris- 
tianity. Consequently, he had no alternative but to 
decline, and we must all agree that from the standpoint of 
the Archbishop, he was correct; for when Christianity 
consented to have representatives sitting in the Parlia- 
ment on terms of equality with every other religion, then, 
consciously or unconsciously, it gave up the claim of 
being the only true and divine religion in the world. 

The effect of the Parliament upon the Christians and 
the non-Christians was singularly striking and profound. 
To the non-Christians it meant this, — a better and com- 
pleter conception of Christianity. Remember that Chris- 
tianity had come to these orientals in battleships and at 
the point of the bayonet. Christianity had come to them, 
it is true, with the missionary and the Bible; but it had 
also come to them with opium and the rum bottle. Here 
at this parliament those foreign delegates had a chance to 
see the finest products of our Western civilization; they 
had an opportunity to hear the foremost representatives of 
the Christian religion. The consequence was that they 
went back to their oriental homes with corrected notions 
of Christianity and of its representatives. 



332 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

The effect of the parliament on the Christian dele- 
gates was no less important and striking. One must 
have observed that they altered the pharisaic tone and 
the spiritual conceit with which they had said " We thank 
Thee, O Lord, that we are not as these pagan idolators." 
They found exemplars of spirituality among these dele- 
gates of which they had never dreamed. They heard 
prayers to " the Father in heaven " of which they thought 
these orientals incapable. Their eyes were opened to the 
fact that only one-third of the total humanity of the earth 
is Christian. Their eyes were opened to the fact that 
Christianity is the youngest of all these religions, with 
the single exception of Mohammedanism. They found 
that in all these various delegates there was the ex- 
pression of religion, and of ethics ; there was expression 
of worship, there was manifestation of spirituality. 
And so they irresistibly recalled that noble sentence, 
toward the end of the New Testament " Are we not all 
children of one Father? Hath not one God created us? " 

Another important result must be added. After that 
parliament it was no longer possible for missionaries to 
go to those oriental peoples with the notion that they 
were forever lost unless they happened to accept a par- 
ticular system of theology. Some of us may have noticed 
that in the spring of the very year in which that parlia- 
ment was held, the American Board of Foreign Missions 
was holding its convention in Boston, and one of the 
questions of that convention was " Shall missionaries be 
allowed to go to Japan, to China, to Ceylon and other 
oriental points unless they are prepared to teach the 
doctrines of hell and the fall ? " Since the parliament 
of religions that question has never been raised again, 
and we are safe in believing that it never will be. 

There are only seven great religions existing in the 
world to-day. The Assyrian and Babylonian religions 



THE SYMPHONY OF RELIGIONS 333 

have long since passed, not, however, without contribu- 
ting very important elements to Judaism, and through 
Judaism, to Christianity. The religion of Egypt passed 
away with the civilization that it represented. The re- 
ligion of Greece gave way to the religion of Rome, and 
the religion of Rome gave place to Christianity, — the 
latter promptly borrowing and adapting certain inter- 
esting religious rites from those pagan religions, rites 
that have remained in our Christmas and our Easter 
festivals. 

The great German dramatist, Herder, once compared 
the religions of mankind to the strings of a harp, each 
one of which gives forth a note of its own, and the 
harmonious blending of the individual notes producing 
a symphonic result. I am indebted to Herder for that 
figure, in giving a title to this address, " The Symphony 
of Religions," for each one of the seven great religions 
that exists in the world to-day has its particular note, and 
the harmonious blending of the notes gives us a genuine 
symphony of religions. Listen to each one of the notes 
that each of these seven religions sounds ! 

From Hinduism we have the note of " spirit " abso- 
lutely abrogating the idea that there is any such thing 
as " dead " matter or " brute " matter or " inert " matter, 
for the whole world of matter is thrilling, throbbing, puls- 
ing with divine energy and divine meaning. 

From Buddhism we have the note of " renunciation," 
the stripping from oneself of " desire " through a self- 
purifying process of discipline. 

From Zoroastrianism we have the note of conflict 
and victory, the ultimate triumph of " the good principle " 
in the universe over " the evil principle " that is battling 
against it, a battle that calls for the co-operation of every 
child with God if the great end is to be achieved. 

From Confucianism we have the note of order. Let 



334 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

man in all his various relations reproduce the beautiful 
order that he sees in external nature, in the symmetry 
and harmony of the solar system. 

And then there comes to us from Judaism the great 
note of righteousness, which sounds all through the Old 
Testament from beginning to end. 

From Mohammedanism we have the note of sub- 
mission, the absolute need of every human soul sub- 
mitting to the authority and omnipotence of the Power 
that is over all, — the heavenly Sultan, " Allah." 

But now there is one note wanting to make the 
symphony complete. Christianity contributes that note, 
and it is the note of love. Not that the doctrine of love 
is absent from these other religions, — it is not ; but the 
spiritual genius of Jesus and the particular circumstances 
under which Christianity came into the world, were such 
as to give a special interpretation and a particular em- 
phasis to the doctrine of love that it had never received 
before. 

Or, we may change Herder's figure and compare the 
seven great existing religions to the seven separate colors 
of the prism, which when blended produce a ray of pure 
white light. So the blending of the separate colors of 
the religious prism will produce a pure white ray of 
universal religion. For the shining of that ray the world 
still waits. It will not come by any mechanical process. 
No religious eclecticism, no literary quilt-work, no patch- 
ing together bits of Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, Bud- 
dhism, Mohammedanism, Confucianism, Judaism and 
Christianity will give us any real spiritual, universal re- 
ligion. That can only come slowly, gradually, spontane- 
ously by an organic, evolutionary process, — each one of 
the great extant religions dying a sectarian death in 
order that it may survive in spiritual substance. 

Just as fast as men and women everywhere come to 



THE SYMPHONY OF RELIGIONS 335 

feel that spiritual freedom means more than slavish 
adherence to any tradition or creed, just as fast as men 
and women everywhere come to care more for the victory 
of truth than they do for the triumph of their sect, just 
so fast will the world hasten the advent of that universal 
religion that shall lift them above all differences of caste, 
color, creed and race, into that sublime religious fellow- 
ship which has been the dream of every age and of every 
race. 



XXI 

RELIGION IN EDUCATION 1 
Raymond C. Knox, B. D. 

Chaplain of Columbia University 

Modern education is often said to be " godless." The 
minds of the young, we are told, are instructed as to every 
conceivable subject except the one highest and most 
important — God. In former times, all study led up to 
knowledge of the divine; now, secular subjects alone 
make up the curriculum. The harmful effects of this 
deficiency are also pointed out : the almost total ignorance 
of the Bible ; tHe diminishing number of students for the 
ministry; the unsettled condition of faith; a general 
attitude of indifference and skepticism. In somewhat 
sensational language, but representing the view of many 
sincere people, modern education is charged with 
" blasting at the rock of ages." 

We would be blind, indeed, were we to shut our eyes 
to the many signs about us of neglected religious educa- 
tion, and to the many changes in former belief and view- 
point which are due to recent study. Nevertheless, to see 
only these things is to be equally blind, and to speak of 
the tendency of modern education as though it were 
materialistic, unspiritual and opposed to religion is at the 
least to be inaccurate. If we would find hopeful indica- 
tions for the future of religion, there is no place where 
they can be found with more certainty than in our 
colleges and universities. But when we search for the 

1 A sermon preached in St. Paul's Chapel, Columbia University, Oc- 
tober io, 1909, in a series on Christianity and the Modern World. 

336 



RELIGION IN EDUCATION 337 

witness to spiritual progress we must be able to look 
beneath appearances. Even when Jesus " went about 
doing good," the people complained that there was no 
sign of the coming of the Kingdom. But He told them, 
" The Kingdom of Heaven cometh not with observation, 
for lo, it is within you." Here we must look for it to-day 
— in the new hopes, the struggling aspirations and the 
larger purposes of men. A time of change, like the pres- 
ent, always appears outwardly to be one of dissolution, 
as in springtime the melting snows uncover bare patches 
and even the rocks are said to crumble; but beneath is 
the swelling power of awakened life, which soon will 
bring the summer harvest. 

Modern education may be said to forge a huge shaft 
sharpened to a point. Viewed from the end, all education 
focuses in a single aim; viewed from the side, we must 
stand in different positions in order to see its several 
surfaces. One wide surface is that which faces toward 
the past. As we scan this side we view the immense 
treasures which the bygone centuries have accumulated 
for us. We are made to realize the extent of our in- 
debtedness to men of former ages, and as we behold, our 
hearts warm with gratitude and with desire to use aright 
the legacy bequeathed to our care. The ability to see 
molded into familiar objects the rich ore mined from 
the deposits of the past belongs to the training of an 
educated man. The uneducated man sees only the 
familiar objects. He 

" Breathes cheaply in the common air, 
Thoughts great hearts once broke for." 

Privileged though he is in a thousand ways, he " knows 
not the rock from which he was hewn, the pit from 
which he was digged." Says Mr. Brierley in one of his 
essays, " The universe, with all its wealth of being, is 



338 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

around the oyster just as much as around you and me. 
The difference between us is that the oyster cannot digest 
the universe as we can." Education is to strengthen our 
powers of spiritual digestion so that we can grow on the 
food freely set before us. It gives culture which, in 
Matthew Arnold's well-known definition, is " the ac- 
quainting of ourselves with the best that has been known 
and said in the world and thus with the history of the 
human spirit." 

But to be uneducated in this sense is more serious than 
to be uncultured. Not to know what the past has com- 
mitted to us results sooner or later in superficiality of 
judgment, recklessness of action, and a betrayal for 
selfish gratification of what is ours only in trust. Long 
ago the prophet-statesman, Isaiah, saw this danger for the 
people of his time : T ' Hear, O Heavens and give ear, O 
Earth, for Jehovah hath spoken. . . . The ox knoweth 
his owner and the ass his master's crib, but Israel doth 
not know, my people doth not consider." Heedlessness 
of their own past reduced them to a level lower than that 
of the brute and wrecked their progress. It is always 
true, as Mr. G. Lowe Dickinson says, that " a sign of a 
step forward is a look backward." Nor until the son 
knows the honor of his father's house can he be entrusted 
with his father's wealth. 

As we look at education from this side, we see at once 
that religion must be included. No matter what one's 
personal attitude may be, it is beyond question that we 
owe to religion many of the treasures which our race has 
acquired and passed on to us. The Bible alone is an 
inherited fortune. Its truths, like radium, have "the 
priceless property of an inexhaustible energy." They 
are found in the lives of heroic men who struggled and 
sacrificed for justice and right. The messages preached 
by these men from God mark great epochs of social 



RELIGION IN EDUCATION 339 

advance. The principles they proclaimed still endure 
as the binding fiber interwoven into the myriad forms 
of modern society. The moral and spiritual appeal of 
the Bible touches so profoundly the heart of human 
nature' that in all ages it penetrates beneath the divisions 
of race, color and creed. 

It is a very encouraging fact that Bible study is rapidly 
increasing to-day in all our schools and colleges. This is 
especially promising because the study is thorough and 
discriminating. For a long time the influence of the 
Bible was limited because it was read without a proper 
sense of proportion. No heed was taken of the principle 
of growth and progress with the result — to borrow an 
illustration from another — the figures appeared as they 
do on a Chinese picture, " the people looked taller than 
the house from which they came.' , Now, once again, 
the followers of the Master walk with Him to Emmaus. 
They see that much that was said by " the men of old " 
has been taken up by the larger revelation in Jesus Christ, 
and as one-time perplexities disappear in the light of His 
life, the hearts of the disciples burn within them with 
the new message to the world. Educators are welcoming 
a study of the Bible which aims only to find its truth, and 
we may confidently rely on the attractive power of its 
truth to draw men to God. 

To return again to our figure of education as a broad 
shaft sharpened to a point, another surface which we view 
from the side is that of efficiency. Modern education 
emphasizes as never before the power of achievement. 
Not, what does a man know ? but, what can he do ? is the 
question we ask, and by which we test the worth of his 
education. 1 The old method of education which made 
of a man but little more than a filing-cabinet has now 

1 Cf. " A Talk on Teaching," by Professor Arthur A. Noyes. Science, 
Nov. 13th, 1908. 



340 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

completely disappeared. Our aim is to make of him a 
dynamo. Bacon's maxim, " Knowledge is power," needs 
correction. Knowledge is fuel for power and the more 
of it the better, but to get its driving energy we must 
have fire. 

The fire may be neglected. Too often we find the man 
who knows how to fight battles so long as he stays at 
home ; who can tell you what ails politics yet plays bridge 
on the night of registration ; who can moralize on 
business and yet never inquires how his dividends are 
earned so long as they are regular ; who can pick out 
the strong and weak points in a sermon, but never thinks 
of applying its truth. 1 Such men carry little weight. 
They have brought discredit rather than fame to the 
cause of education. They are powerless because, as 
Phillips Brooks once said, " they fail to make the con- 
nection between the engine and the boiler." 

But if education is more than mere knowledge, if it is 
power to do, how should this power be named, and 
where is it to come from? I reply, this power to do is 
essentially a moral power. It is the personal response 
to the facts perceived. It is the feeling of responsibility, 
of desire, of willingness to pay the cost of doing and to 
take the risk, of an impelling purpose for which the facts 
must be mastered and employed. I know there are many 
men, especially those scientifically trained, who dislike 
the word feeling or emotion. But not to see its presence 
in the power to do is prejudice. Tyndall speaks of a 
" strong and resolute enthusiasm in which science finds 
an ally." " Without moral force," he says, " to whip it 
[the intellect] into action, the achievements of the in- 
tellect would be poor indeed." 2 

1 Cf. " Social Aspects of Moral Education," by Charles De Garmo, 
Third Year Book, National Herbart Society, p. 44. 

2 Cited by President Butler in " The Meaning of Education " (New 
York, 1901), p. 62. 



RELIGION IN EDUCATION 341 

Every teacher knows the practical difficulty of getting 
students to use their energies. President Lowell of 
Harvard speaks of this as the hardest task he sees. Com- 
mon experience is summed up by a humorous philosopher 
in the paraphrase, " You may lead a boy to the door of 
the college but you can't make him think." Why not 
make use of the strongest stimulator of moral energy the 
w r orld has ever known? Religion is a producer of moral 
power; practically everything else is a consumer. It 
opens directly the " vital dynamics of moral being." 
There need be here no question of creed or dogmas; 
simply, apply the power religion can give. " Brains," we 
are told, " to be any good must have blood in them ; " 
otherwise they are fit for a jar on a museum shelf. 
And for the brains to have blood the heart must work. 
" Every man who will not have softening of the heart," 
says Mr. Chesterton, " must at last have softening of the 
brain." More must be done in education to stir the 
heart. Feelings must not be left to shift for themselves. 
Let the deep feelings of reverence and worship, which 
only man can feel, be awakened and directed; let not 
only the romance but also the heroism of devotion to 
spiritual things be felt ; let the exaltation, yet the natural- 
ness of God's nearness, be a daily experience ; and there 
will be liberated a stronger moral force for intellectual 
achievement and for the performance of duty everywhere. 

But education has not finished its work even when it 
gives culture and efficiency. These are but means to 
something else. The broad shaft of education, we re- 
member, focuses in a sharp point. That point is the 
answer which education gives to the question, What is 
life for? Supposing one has wide knowledge and 
thoroughly trained ability for his particular work or 
profession, for what end shall he use his training and 
his life? This sounds like a big question and so it is. 



342 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

But every one must answer it and does answer it some- 
how, until he ceases to live. Education is to make young 
men and women look at life deliberately and intelligently 
so that they are not creatures of chance and impulse, 
but their own masters. It shows them the highest life- 
purpose and bids them devote their all to it. Education 
in its fullest sense is to arouse and develop in each indi- 
vidual an enlightened and unreserved devotion to the 
ideal of service for the public good. Unless that ideal 
is made supreme, education has not done what it should. 
We may adapt the saying of Phillips Brooks and assert : 
" No man has come to true education who has not felt 
in some degree that his life belongs to his race, and that 
what God has given him, He has given him for man- 
kind." 

Commonplace as is this word service, its bearing upon 
education is of transforming effect. It has changed the 
center of education as completely as the discovery of 
Copernicus changed the center of the solar system. In- 
dividual success is not the object of education, nor is 
" the harmonious development of all one's powers." The 
central sun around which all revolves is the ideal of 
social service. In its light every subject is to be studied. 
" The ultimate significance of lake, river, mountain and 
plain," says Professor Dewey, " is not physical but 
social; it is the part which it plays in modifying and 
functioning human relationships." * This principle ap- 
plies in the study of history, mathematics, physics and all 
the rest. 

Devotion to this ideal of service must be developed 
not only by study but also by practice. Too often 
the student will listen to the presentation of the ideal 
with interest and warmth, but he will think of a future 

1 " Ethical Principles Underlying Education." Third Year Book, 
National Herbart Society, page 20. 



RELIGION IN EDUCATION 343 

occasion, "when he is out in life " as the time when he 
will follow it. But for one to fancy that he is rightly 
preparing for life while at the same time he neglects to 
do his full share of service in his community, is, to quote 
Professor Dewey again, " like imagining you can learn 
to swim without going near the water." 1 

The complex conditions in which we live must also be 
understood and controlled so that they give support to 
the ideal of service. As conditions are to-day in the 
world they are about as hard for the one who would live 
the life of service as a despotic monarchy is for a lover of 
liberty. People smile at Commmencement when the 
senior speaks of ideals, not because they are false, not 
because he is insincere, but because the contrast between 
them and the actual conditions is so great. What ac- 
counts for that conspicuous rift in American manhood, 
the difference between private standards and business 
standards? Why is the same man often generous, con- 
siderate, open-hearted to his neighbors at home, yet hard, 
even ruthless, to his neighbors in business? His reply 
is, the conditions make him so ; " business is business.'' 
Can the conditions be changed so that the nobler impulses 
have a chance? 

With this ideal of service in all its aspects as the 
supreme end of education, the connection with religion 
is once again evident. Service to one's fellow-men is 
the answer of Christianity to the question, What is life 
for? It says that this life of service is none other than 
the divine life, the expression of God's spirit from within 
the heart of man. Through service men become the sons 
of God because they thus do His will. To Christ, the 
transformed society in which the spirit of service should 
control all relations and conditions was the Kinglom of 
Heaven, the reign of God upon earth. His purpose was 

1 Ibid., p. 13. 



344 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

to awaken in men that sense of God's presence which 
expresses itself in service to the community. 

If, then, we discern this close connection between 
education and religion, if they share an inherited culture, 
if they combine to produce efficiency, if they are deeply 
one in life-purpose, there remains for us to ask, why are 
they apart? If they should be joined together, what 
keeps them asunder? All agree that theoretically they 
should be one ; and all agree that practically they are not. 
The most important question is, therefore, how can the 
separation be overcome? How can religion and educa- 
tion work together in harmony and freedom? How can 
the ideal be made the fact? 

To this I reply: we must begin by a frank recognition 
of what education is doing for religion and then build 
upon that. When the highest aim is service, education 
cannot be materialistic, unspiritual or " godless," even 
though no doctrines of religion are taught. As a matter 
of fact, it is doing more the work of Christ than at any 
previous time in its history. We are prone to overlook 
a direction Jesus once gave to His disciples on an oc- 
casion which bears a resemblance to the present. They 
come to Him and say that they saw one doing His work 
and they forbade the man " because he followed not with 
us." But Jesus says, " Forbid him not, for there is no 
man that shall do a mighty work in my name and be able 
quickly to speak evil of me. For he who is not against 
us is for us." St. Paul won the world of his day, the 
world of Greek and Roman culture, by a sympathetic 
understanding of the highest he found in men. His 
message on Mars Hill to the assembled philosophers was, 
" Ye men of Athens, in all things I perceive that ye 
are very religious. . . . Whom therefore ye ignorantly 
worship Him declare I unto you." 

We must win our world, this immense new world 



RELIGION IN EDUCATION 345 

infinitely spread out in time and space by the discoveries 
of science, transformed in appearance by human industry 
and commerce — we can conquer it only by a like 
sympathetic interpretation of the highest and noblest 
we find in men to-day. The men of science are at heart 
" very religious." " The passion for truth is nothing less 
than a dim and partially developed act of worship toward 
the God of Truth." We must honor and trust these men 
as ministers of His Word, for His Word is truth. We 
must not stone the prophets who rise among them and 
leave it to later generations to decorate their tombs. And 
if the leading Spirit of Truth which has come to their 
hearts from God requires us to see the old faith in a 
brighter light, let us not hide our face from the light and 
fear that the faith is lost. For, 

" I say that man was made to grow, not stop ; 
That help he needed once, and needs no more, 
Having grown but an inch by, is withdrawn : 
For he hath new needs and new helps to these. 
This imports solely man should mount on each 
New height in view : the help whereby he mounts, 
The ladder rung his foot has left, may fall, 
Since all things suffer change save God the Truth. 
Man apprehends Him newly at each stage 
Whereat earth's ladder drops, its service done ; 
And nothing shall prove twice what once was proved." 

When we thus sympathetically trust our educators 
and men of science and work with them more heartily 
for the Christ-ideal of service, the gain to religion will 
be incalculable. Religion will be strengthened where 
now it is weakest. For throughout the land it is true, 
as has been said : " Religion is alive in the heart and will, 
but it waits the intellectual form such as shall give it new 
ascendancy over the world." x The striking figure has 

1 Dr. George A. Gordon, Edinburgh Address, July, 1908. 



346 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

been used of religion as " once the pillar of cloud which 
went before the human race in its great march through 
history, showing it the way. Now, it is fast assuming the 
role of the ambulance which follows in the rear and 
picks up the exhausted and wounded. This, too, is a 
great work, but it is not sufficient." For religion to 
do its complete work, both of leading the forward march 
and protecting the rear, its commands must be spoken 
in a voice men will hear. It must inspire the confidence 
and devotion of the general who has thought his plan of 
battle through and who is already master of the field. 
As says Professor Peabody : " Not less of religious fer- 
vor and not less of practical activity are demanded of the 
representatives of religion, but a new accession of intel- 
lectual power, the capacity to translate the message of 
the timeless into the dialect of the present age." * We 
turn for the rearing of men of such power to our col- 
leges and universities, and they, I repeat, are ready to re- 
spond if we trust them freely and work with them for 
the highest. 

To sum up : From whatever side the mighty shaft 
forged by education is viewed, as well as when we follow 
its lines to the point, we see religion likewise. As we 
are true to the trust committed to us by the past, as we 
strive for greater power of achievement, as we devote 
ourselves to the ideal of service, education and religion 
become wrought together as bars of iron are forged by 
fire. To weld them as one for their common work, we 
must freely recognize the worth of the scientific spirit of 
education and we must be able to show the full religious 
significance of education's highest ideals. Religion comes 
with power when it comes with revelation. It must re- 
veal the deepest in God to the deepest in man. And the 

1 " The Call to Theology," Harvard Theological Review, January, 
1908. 



RELIGION IN EDUCATION 347 

revelation which will win the world to-day is the new 
utterance of the revelation which won it of old, " If any 
man keep the commandment of God and loveth his 
brother, God abideth in him and he hath passed from 
darkness into light." 



XXII 

THE RELIGION OF THE FUTURE 

By J. Herman Randall, D.D. 

Pastor of the Mount Morris Baptist Church, New York City 

Two facts impress the student of comparative religions, 
most profoundly ; first, the real sympathy of all religions, 
and second, that religion, like everything else in this uni- 
verse, is subject to the law of evolution. No one who has 
followed such a series of lectures as this, can have failed 
to gain a deeper consciousness of the sympathy of all 
religions. We have come to feel more clearly than ever 
before that beneath all names and phrases and doctrines 
there are the same great underlying impulses, the same 
profound realities, the same eternal aspirations. It is 
not only true that everywhere and at all times, God has 
been seeking man. It is just as true, that everywhere and 
at all times, man, according to his light, has been seeking 
God. And under varying names and through different 
doctrinal paths, it has been the same God, the one and 
only true God, whom man has been always seeking. 

We are also clearly convinced that religion, like every- 
thing else in the world, is subject to the law of change and 
growth. Beginning with the earliest religions of primi- 
tive men, we can trace to-day the steady development out 
of crude and superstitious notions toward a more ethical 
and spiritual conception of religion. The progress may 
seem very slow at times, but it is surely there. This is 
true not only of man's notions of religion but also of the 
organizations which have grown up about his religious 

348 



THE RELIGION OF THE FUTURE 349 

ideas. So that it has become axiomatic to the student of 
religion, that while religions come and go, religion per- 
sists ; that is, while the thought-form or the theology, the 
ecclesiastical organization or the church, the rites and 
ceremonies or the ritual are constantly subject to change, 
sometimes passing away never to return again, and again 
disappearing only to manifest themselves in new or higher 
forms, — that while in this sense, religions may be said 
to die, in a deeper sense, the underlying essence of re- 
ligion, the great primary impulse that leads man to seek 
to relate himself in some intelligible way with the uni- 
verse in which he lives, — this is the eternally persistent 
fact. As Sabatier most truly puts it, " Man is incura- 
bly religious." So that if it were possible to destroy at 
one fell swoop all the religions that exist in the world 
to-day, it would be but the briefest space of time before 
we should find religion once again flourishing, either un- 
der old forms or new, for the religious impulse is as deep 
as man's life itself, and must ever find outward expres- 
sion. 

The attempt to forecast in any sense the future of 
religion is a presumptuous task, and it is usually a thank- 
less one. President Eliot of Harvard essayed it recently, 
with what result we all know. There were some who 
agreed with his forecast, and many more who vehemently 
disagreed. The only way in which it is possible for one to 
speak with even the slightest degree of authority upon 
so vast a subject as " The Future of Religion " is to care- 
fully study the evolution of religion as we see it taking 
place in the centuries that are past, and then to observe 
as impartially as possible the conditions of religious 
thought and life of to-day, and at last, in view of all these 
past and present tendencies, to humbly make the attempt 
to point out the lines along which religious development 
will probably move in the years yet to come. This is all I 



350 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

am expected to do, and all that I shall attempt in this 
lecture. In view of what religion has gradually come to 
be, and in the presence of religious conditions to-day, 
what can we justly say will be the general movement of 
religious development in the years to come ? 

As we study its general trend, we find that there have 
been three great cycles in the religious evolution of the 
past ; first, " nature religion," secondly, " political re- 
ligion," and thirdly, what Dr. Crapsey has called, " the 
religion of the human ideal and the social order." 

In prehistoric times only the first of these was known. 
Nature religion presided over the origins of civilization. 
The earth and the sky combined to give man his earliest 
faith, and among primitive men we find everywhere the 
childlike tendency to personify the forces of nature. 
Coming into first-hand contact with the phenomena of the 
universe in which he found himself, man felt that these 
inexplicable powers, mightier than he, were nothing less 
than personal forces to be regarded as deities ; and so 
there grew up his crude, superstitious and selfish wor- 
ship of these nature gods. Most naturally also, primitive 
man ascribes to his deities very much the same virtues 
and vices that he finds in himself; the first gods have 
like passions with man. In this first cycle of religion we 
find that everywhere, differing not in essentials but only 
in outward forms, man's religion grows out of his crude 
and ignorant attempt to interpret the universe about him, 
and to come into friendly relations with the powers he 
sees revealed. Man's first gods are nature gods. 

With the merging of the prehistoric into the historic 
period we find tremendous changes taking place in every 
phase of man's life. The old simple life of the wandering 
nomad gives place now to the life of the community, 
and that at length to the life of the city ; centers of popu- 
lation begin to thrive and grow, and gradually the prim- 



THE RELIGION OF THE FUTURE 351 

itive nature worship of man resolves itself into a 
political religion. His nature gods become first tribal, 
then urban, then national. Jehovah, Zeus and Jupiter, 
were now born out of the order of the earlier nature de- 
ities, into a political order. Jerusalem was the city of 
Jehovah. Athens built the Parthenon to the glory of 
the goddess, Athena. Rome clustered round the temple 
of Jupiter of the Capitol. 

In the ancient historic world the gods were heads of 
the state ; they went out, as Lords of Hosts, before the 
armies of their cities to battle, and were victorious or 
vanquished according to the fortunes of war. Men prayed 
to their gods for victory over their enemies, and in criti- 
cal moments made vows to sacrifice sons and daughters, 
if the gods would only deliver them from their peril. 

Political religion found expression still later in other 
forms. No one can read the history of the Christian 
church during the Middle Ages without becoming con- 
scious of the very large part that politics played in the re- 
ligious organization of those centuries. Even to-day, 
while the political gods are slowly disappearing from the 
horizon, still it is true that wherever sectarianism exists 
or theological definitions are given the first place, there 
the political gods still rule. So long as men think chiefly 
about their particular " system " of religion, instead of 
about religion, so long will religion remain political 
rather than ethical or spiritual. 

The third cycle of religion, that of the human ideal 
and of the social order, was inaugurated with the coming 
of Jesus Christ into the world, for Jesus taught, more 
clearly than any other religious teacher, that the greatest 
thing in all the world is man himself; that man does not 
exist for the sake of the church or for the sake of the 
theology or for the sake of the state, but that church and 
state, theology and ritual — all exist for the sake of man ; 



352 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

and because this is true, therefore the supreme ideal is 
the perfection of man. " Ye shall be perfect," says Jesus 
Christ, " even as your Father who is in heaven is perfect." 

No one has ever set before humanity a loftier or 
nobler ideal than did Jesus Christ. I will not take the 
time to remind you of the familiar passages in which this 
ideal is described. Along with His great idea of the per- 
fectibility of individual human life there goes His thought 
of the perfect social order under His favorite phrase, 
" The Kingdom of God." The two cannot be separated. 
As He lays the emphasis first on the perfection of the 
individual, and then on the Kingdom of God, established 
not in some distant world but here on this earth, Jesus 
teaches that the perfect social order is made possible by 
the perfected individual, and, on the other hand, the per- 
fection of the individual is alone to be made possible 
through the gradual perfection of the social order. 

Jesus inaugurated this third religious cycle, and yet, 
as history reveals, it was but a little while, scarcely two 
centuries, before the lofty ethical and spiritual ideals of 
Jesus became over-clouded from contact with the sur- 
rounding environment. Paganism, in many of its forms 
and in some measure, in its actual essence, crept into 
the new Christian organization, and from that time until 
to-day organized Christianity has been more or less domi- 
nated not by the God of the human ideal and of the per- 
fect social order, but by the gods of theology or ecclesi- 
asticism. 

For the sake of greater clearness, we may describe the 
evolution of Religion in still simpler terms. In human 
history Religion has exhibited three phases or, in point 
of time, has passed through three stages ; first, the ritual- 
istic ; second, the theological ; and third, the stage into 
which it is just now passing, the ideals for which were 
first voiced most clearly by Jesus 1900 years ago but for 



THE RELIGION OF THE FUTURE 353 

which the world was not ready then — the ethical and 
the spiritual stage. Primitive man builds his altar, brings 
his gift or his victim and makes his sacrifice. The 
whole purpose of his religion is to propitiate the deity 
by the gifts he brings, to ward off his anger or win his 
favor and induce him to perform some miracle or grant 
some boon in his behalf. Thus the ritual, the priest and 
the sacrifice represent the central facts in the first stage 
of religion. There is no clearly defined theology, no lofty 
moral and spiritual conception. Man is as yet only an 
undeveloped child in his intellectual and moral life. 

As religion passes into its second or theological stage, 
the ritual still persists, but is gradually subordinated to 
the intellectual side of religion, and theologies in all 
degrees of crudity, begin to appear. With increasing 
interest men take up the work of creed building, and the 
age of theological controversy, involving bitter discussions, 
heresy trials, persecutions and martyrdoms for " the 
truth's sake," is ushered in. The chief emphasis is laid 
upon the idea of authority in religion and authority is 
construed solely in external terms. For centuries in 
Christendom, religious authority was vested in the church ; 
after the Reformation, the Protestant branch of Chris- 
tianity placed its authority in an infallible Bible. And 
some creed, which men must believe, is always the result. 
In one instance it is dictated by the church ; in the 
other it is formulated from the Scriptures. But theology 
is made the final test of one's religion, by both Roman 
Catholics and Protestants alike. Until the moral senti- 
ment of man outgrew the old harsh and cruel spirit 
inherited from the past, men were able to exact from the 
disbeliever or non-conformist the full penalty for disobey- 
ing the authority of the church or the Bible. In the 
earlier age, religious persecution took on the form of 
physical torture and oftentimes death. Later when it was 



354 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

no longer able to attack the physical man it took on a no 
less fiendish form, in socially and religiously ostracising 
men and women who could not honestly conform to the 
authority of the church or creed. In modern times, the 
same spirit that formerly burned men for heresy, is now 
obliged to be content with branding them. This is always 
the root-evil of religion in its theological stage of develop- 
ment. 

To-day, unless all signs mislead, we are entering into 
a new appreciation of the truth that Jesus proclaimed, 
and the world now seems ready at last to enter upon the 
third stage of religious development, in which the ritual 
may still continue, at least in some forms of religion, 
when there will still be a place for the intellectual side of 
religion, or for theology, but when both ritual and theology 
will be subordinated to something else, and that something 
else is life, the life that Jesus taught was inbreathed in 
every man by God, which every individual is capable of 
expressing in just the degree that his moral and spiritual 
consciousness is developed — the spiritual life which it is 
the sole end of religion to foster and evolve. Churches, 
creeds and rituals are but means to that great end, and 
do not exist for their own sakes. Religion may use them 
all, but religion is independent of them all, simply be- 
cause religion is life. 

This second classification of the stage of religious 
development, while the terms differ, coincides with the 
three cycles previously described. Religion is first, na- 
ture-worship or ritualistic ; second, political or theological ; 
third, a religion of humanity, or an ethical and spiritual 
religion. 

From this brief survey of the evolution of religion, it 
is certain to my mind that religious development to-day is 
unmistakably moving out along the lines suggested by 
this last stage. The religion of the future will be more 



THE RELIGION OF THE FUTURE 355 

and more a religion of humanity, and will find expression 
increasingly in terms that are ethical and spiritual, rather 
than eccesiastical or theological. We are fast outgrow- 
ing the old dogmatic theologies and the former ecclesias- 
tical types of religion. Men are reaching out eagerly 
to-day for a religion that shall dare to voice itself in 
terms that are ethical and spiritual, whose end shall be 
the all-around service of humanity. It is not that men 
worship God any less than formerly ; they worship Him in 
a different place. For centuries man has worshiped the 
God who sat on a throne above the heavens. To-day 
we have come to believe that God's true throne is not 
outside but within humanity. So that the religion of 
humanity, as we become more familiar with the phrase, 
does not mean a religion in which God is ruled out; it 
rather means a religion that places God within the life 
of humanity instead of on some distant throne beyond 
the stars, and that therefore, the only true worship of 
God is genuine disinterested service for humanity. We 
are at last coming to believe that Jesus was right when 
He treated all men as if they were children of God, when 
He discerned the heart of goodness in all men, even those 
whom externally we call evil; when He saw behind and 
beneath the surface imperfections and sins of men, a bet- 
ter life though latent and many times dormant, yet again 
and again struggling for fuller expression. It was 
because Jesus knew humanity and understood the human 
heart, and believed in the best that is in human nature, 
that He expressed such profound confidence and hope 
for the ultimate perfection of men and women and for 
the perfectibility of human society. We have not yet 
reached His lofty plane of vision but we are moving in 
that direction. 

The need of the age, and let me say the deep heart- 
hunger of men to-day is not for less of religious truth, 



356 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

the real truth that lies behind all the old creeds and 
dogmas; it is rather for the breaking of the dead shells 
and letting out the imprisoned truth into our thought and 
life to-day. The prophet most needed is the one who 
can pierce through the incrustations of the centuries and 
give to men in vital terms the eternal truth of all the 
ages. 

Can we speak a little more specifically as to the 
theology of the religion of the future? If the old 
theology is gone or fast going, what is to take its place? 
Just as long as man thinks at all he must think about 
religion. It is not merely a question of living; the 
thoughtful person who lives any kind of a life must have 
some sort of a philosophy of life. Inevitably then a 
person who in the future shall strive to live the ethical 
and spiritual life, if he thinks at all, must have some kind 
of a theology to explain or to justify his life. So if these 
old theologies of the past are going, what will be the 
thought form for the religion of the future? 

Here again because of the limits of time we can only 
speak in most general terms. The constant tendency, in 
man's intellectual conception of religion, discernible even 
from the beginning, tremendously accelerated by the 
disclosures of this modern age, is a tendency to translate 
what is partial and limited and unethical and mechanical 
in theology, into terms that are universal, necessary, 
natural and spiritual. It must be along that line that 
theology is to make its progress in the future. This 
will be true not alone of Christianity, but of all other 
forms of living religion. If we were to study, in a com- 
parative way, the theologies of the various religions of 
the world, we would find that the earliest theologies in 
each instance are the most limited, most partial, most 
unethical, most mechanical. As we follow their develop- 
ment down through the centuries, we find the movement 



THE RELIGION OF THE FUTURE 357 

more and more in the direction of the universal, the 
necessary, the natural, the ethical, the spiritual in the 
statement of religious truth. Every revision of any creed 
means a partial elimination of what is limited and 
unethical, and a step nearer to what is universal and 
spiritual in religion. 

The theologies of to-day are vastly better in these 
respects than the theologies of yesterday ; and the 
theologies of to-morrow will be a vast improvement on 
those of to-day. Let us take, for example, man's thought 
of God. In every religion the earliest thought of God 
is always of a being who is limited. He is a tribal deity 
or a God of the nation, or a God of the elect, or the 
Father only of Christians. The Hebrew Jehovah was a 
limited deity; He was the God of the Jews, and His 
thought and concern was only for the Jews. It is only 
the later Hebrew Prophets who begin to catch glimpses 
of the God of all the earth, of the Gentiles as well as of 
the Jews. In these same later prophets we find the sug- 
gestion at least of the Fatherhood of God, that is enunci- 
ated in greatest clearness in the teachings of Jesus. And 
Paul gives us the lofty conception of God as the Uni- 
versal Spirit " in whom we all live and move and have 
our being." What is true of the Hebrew is true of all 
other religions in their notions of God. 

The same movement can be traced in the morality of 
religious conceptions; many of the earliest ideas of God 
in every religion are unethical, if not absolutely immoral. 
The first gods possessed all man's vices as well as his 
virtues. There are conceptions of Jehovah in the Old 
Testament that we would not teach to our children for 
anything in the world. They simply reflect the spirit of 
a barbarous age, steeped in cruelty. We do not believe 
them for a moment. We no longer accept as true the 
statement, simply because it is in the Bible, that Jehovah 



358 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

commanded the Israelites to go forth and slay at the point 
of the sword men, women, and helpless children. There 
is much in the early history of the Old Testament that 
reflects merely the savagery, the cruelty, the barbarity of 
the age that gave this literature birth. And we are not 
bound to believe in any such God as is there pictured. 

But we need not regard the earlier peoples, as alone 
guilty in this respect. In much of our later Christian 
theology we have preached and taught notions of God 
which were absolutely unethical, directly contrary to 
man's deepest and best moral thought. We have taught 
for centurieG doctrines of sin, of the atonement, and of 
the future punishment of the wicked, in which the funda- 
mental principles of ethics were violated. We have 
preached that God did do and could do things which we 
would instantly condemn in human beings. The new 
thought of God to-day is moving away from that which is 
partial and limited and mechanical to that which is 
universal and ethical and spiritual, and it will be increas- 
ingly so in the future. 

" Our little systems have their day ; 
They have their day and cease to be ; 
They are but broken lights of Thee, 
And Thou, O Lord, are more than they." 

So with man's thought about Jesus Christ. For centuries 
theological Christianity has taught that Jesus was " the 
only son of God." The line was drawn clear and distinct 
between Jesus and all the rest of humanity, despite the 
fact that the Bible declared in the very first chapter of 
Genesis, that man was made in God's image; notwith- 
standing the splendid assertions of Jesus that God is our 
Father and that we are His children; and of Paul, that 
we are all God's offspring. The real humanity of Jesus 
has been overclouded by His divinity, and to many He 
has become, therefore, an unreal and fictitious being. 



THE RELIGION OF THE FUTURE 359 

The movement of our thought of Jesus Christ in the 
future will be in the direction, not of disparaging Him, 
nor in any sense of lowering His divinity, but rather of a 
recognition of the divine Spirit indwelling in all men, 
and hence of the divineness of human life. We shall see 
more clearly that Jesus stands at a particular point in 
history as the norm for humanity, as the fullest revelation 
of the divine in human life; that all great and true 
religious teachers have possessed God's spirit in a measure, 
and that it is possible for every one, as Jesus taught, 
to become like Him, to live out the divine life fully and 
completely and symmetrically. In other words, as the 
partial and mechanical gives way to the universal and 
spiritual in our thought of Jesus, we shall see that He 
differs not in kind from other men, but only in degree. 

If there were time we might point out the same 
tendency as respects all the doctrines of religion. As 
our knowledge of the Universe, of life, and especially of 
ourselves grows from more to more, we must inevitably 
translate whatever has been limited, partial, mechanical 
and unethical in our theology into universal, necessary, 
natural, ethical and spiritual terms. 

Is it possible to forecast the future of the organization 
of religion ? What is to be the future of the church, can 
it survive in its present forms? As we study the past 
and confront present conditions, there are to my mind 
two unmistakable tendencies in the outward form that 
religion is to take, — one toward the ecclesiastical and 
ritualistic, and the other toward what I may call the 
simple and the free form of organization and worship. 
Few intelligent people believe that sectarianism can long 
survive. In fact the death knell of sectarianism has been 
already sounded. It is not impossible that in the life- 
time of this generation we shall see many of these one 
hundred and sixty odd different Protestant sects that 



3<5o UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

exist to-day either disappearing entirely or else com- 
bining and uniting their forces into one. Men and women 
in every denomination are awakening to see the folly, 
the absurdity, the wastefulness and, still more, the 
absolute wickedness of the attempt to perpetuate these 
different denominational systems in a day and generation 
like ours that has ruled out sectarianism everywhere else 
in life, and is demanding more and more of unity and 
co-operation. The great duty of the hour, which we 
neglect at our peril, is the minimizing of differences and 
the magnifying of the common points of agreement. 

I do not mean that there will be only two great 
churches; there will doubtless be different organizations 
but the spirit of sectarianism is to die not only out of 
Christianity but out of all religions, and there will be a 
glorious unifying of the various sects, now entirely 
separated. 

These two main tendencies I see, — the tendency to- 
ward some ritualistic form of worship, and the tendency 
toward the free and simple form. Or, to put it still more 
concretely, the tendency toward the Episcopal form of 
service and the tendency toward what George Fox stood 
for in the early days of Quakerism, where every man was 
independent and stood alone before God. Whether men 
will be drawn in one direction or the other, is largely a 
question of temperament. There are people who prefer to 
have religion presented in a way that appeals not only 
to the spiritual or the intellectual but also to the esthetic 
sense. To these the ritualistic worship will appeal. And 
there are other people who do not care very much about 
the esthetic sense but who are tremendously interested in 
the spiritual or the intellectual or the ethical side of 
religion, and they will gather themselves together in these 
free and simple groups or organizations or churches. 

To sum it all up briefly, the religion of the future in my 



THE RELIGION OF THE FUTURE 361 

judgment will tend more and more toward the religion of 
Jesus Christ. But when I say that, I do not mean it will 
tend more and more toward Christianity as it is organized 
to-day. The thing most of us do not yet see is that the 
religion of Jesus, and Christianity, as a historic or 
organized system, are two very different things. Per- 
sonally I do not believe that Christianity as we have 
known it in its creeds or rituals or ecclesiastical systems 
can possibly survive and become the universal world 
religion, for thus regarded, it is not in spirit or thought a 
universal religion. But the religion of Jesus, which, as 
some one has said, " has never yet been tried by the 
churches," is the religion toward which the tendencies 
and signs of the time all point. 

Reducing the religion of Jesus to its simplest terms, we 
find it to consist of the Fatherhood of God and the 
Brotherhood of Man, — terms that are absolutely uni- 
versal and that will make their appeal to every nation of 
men the whole world round, just as fast as men become 
capable of grasping ethical and spiritual ideals. This re- 
ligion of Jesus, with its consequent twofold duty of love 
to God and love to man, is the only religion destined to 
become the universal religion of the world, and consti- 
tutes in so far as we can see, the ultimate in Religion. 

This is only another way of stating what was said 
at the outset, that we are at last entering upon the cycle 
of religious development that Jesus inaugurated, but for 
which the world was not then ready — the religion of the 
human ideal, and the perfection of the social order. We 
may not believe it. Many of us may think it means a 
retrograde movement in religion; many of us may be 
doing what we can to stem the tide moving in that direc- 
tion, but I am confident for myself that the religion of the 
future will be the religion of Humanity, the religion that 
sees God not in some distant heaven but that finds Him 



362 UNITY OF RELIGIONS 

first of all in ourselves and then in every man and woman 
and little child, that will not be content to rest day or 
night until humanity everywhere is lifted up to its high- 
est and best, that does not believe in social betterment 
simply as an end in itself, but rather because it sees clearly 
that only as we improve conditions socially, can the in- 
dividual life reach its highest ideal. 

The religion of the future then will be less theological, 
but profoundly more ethical and spiritual. It will care 
less about creeds and more about truth. It will be less 
complicated and much more free and simple. It will 
require vastly less in the way of ecclesiastical tests of men, 
and will demand only that men and women shall have in 
themselves the life of the spirit, which means the life of 
sympathy and love and brotherliness. It will not content 
itself with worshiping God within the four walls of any 
church or cathedral, but will find its truest temple wher- 
ever man is, and its greatest joy in striving to lift man 
up to his best, and to bring out in man the divinest by 
making his environment righteous and pure and true. 

" What is the purport of the scheme toward which all time is gone ? 
What is the great aeonian goal ? The joy of going on. 
And are there any souls so strong, such feet with swiftness shod, 
That they shall reach it, reach some bourne, the ultimate of God ? 
There is no bourne, no ultimate. The very farthest star 
But rims a sea of other stars that stretches just as far. 
There's no beginning and no end. As in the ages gone, 
The greatest joy of joys shall be the joy of going on." 



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